2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16
In the seventies it became very fashionable to have a night light in the bedroom, consisting of a hemispherical stand and a bunch of waveguides sticking out of it. In the dark, this design emitted a dim light in the form of small dots burning on the tips of thin translucent fibers. This really beautiful thing was made from the waste products of a new type of information conductors. Their name is optical cables (otherwise - FOCL, that is, fiber-optic communication lines).
Principle of FOCL
Any electrical conductor has resistance, not only active, but also reactive (capacitive and inductive). These physical parameters depend on the diameter of the wire, its wave properties and, of course, the length of the line connecting the signal sender to the receiving device. High-frequency channels are especially sensitive to the resistive qualities of the communication channel. A fiber-optic cable is devoid of this drawback, the losses in it are incomparably smaller than in ordinary conductors, because the information carrier is light energy. The principle of operation of the channel is quite clear and simple. A signal converted from electrical to optical is applied to the input of the communication line. At the output, it is demodulated, and it enters the receiving and information device already in the form of familiar voltage pulses.
Advantages of fiber channels
In addition to resistance to interference and attenuation, optical cables have other very significant advantages. When transmitting information over fiber channels, it is much easier to maintain its confidentiality, since it is almost impossible to connect to them covertly. Another advantage of this transmission method is economic. Copper is a non-ferrous and expensive metal; waveguide materials have a more affordable price. An optical cable is made from quartz or special polymer compositions (fluoro-aluminate or fluorine-zirconate), which, moreover (third advantage) are much lighter than metal conductors, which also need to be shielded.
Disadvantages of optical communication
Yes, optical cables, like everything in this world, are not without flaws.
Firstly, to restore communication in the event of a line break, it is necessary to replace the entire damaged section, waveguides are not subject to splicing, thus, repair work becomes seriously more expensive.
Secondly, installation work is also not cheap. They require precision equipment, which is expensive. And the qualifications of specialists require considerable, and they need to be paid accordingly.
Thirdly, to the mentioned signal converters at the inputand the output of the line, as well as connectors (devices that provide switching), there are very high requirements for reliability, optical losses, and accuracy. The fact that quality costs money does not need to be explained to anyone.
Communication of the future
And yet there are more advantages. Optical cables can transmit a broadband signal, which significantly increases the speed of information exchange (measured already in Terabits per second). At the same time, the attenuation is extremely small (at a wavelength of 1.55 microns, it is only 0.22 dB/km). In addition, the ability of light waves to move in opposite directions (with different polarizations) in one conductor increases the capabilities of FOCL. Their cultivation continues.
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