Wednesday 22 April 2020

Fiber cable comes in two forms: multimode and single-mode.

Fiber cable comes in two forms: multimode and single-mode. A mode in optical transmission is a ray of light entering the core at a particular angle. Modes can therefore be thought of as bundles of light rays of the same wavelength entering the fiber at a specific angle.

Single-mode and multimode fiber have differences that range from structural to use in structured cabling systems. Single-mode fiber is capable of higher bandwidth and greater cable run distances (up to 3000 meters) than multimode fiber (up to 2000 meters only). Because of these characteristics, single-mode fiber is often used for interbuilding connectivity or WANs (for example telephone company switch-to-switch connection). Multimode fiber is more commonly used in LAN backbones within buildings.

Multimode fiber uses LEDs as the light source, while single-mode fiber generally uses laser light sources. Furthermore, single-mode fiber is typically more expensive than multimode. The reason is because the almost hair-size glass fiber in single-mode is more fragile and it needs added protection (coating and buffering materials) to make it manageable.
The much smaller and more refined fiber core in single-mode fiber, although it entails more manufacturing costs, is the reason single-mode has a considerably much higher bandwidth and cable run distances than multimode fiber.

Multimode
Multimode fiber allows multiple modes of light to propagate through the fiber-optic core, as compared to single-mode fiber, which only allows one mode. Multiple modes of light propagating through fiber might travel different distances, depending on their entry angles. This causes them to arrive at the destination (receiving end of the cable) at slightly different times, a phenomenon called "modal dispersion". Multimode uses a type of glass, called graded index glass, which has a lower index of refraction towards the outer edge of the core. This causes the light to slow down when passing through the center of the core and accelerate when passing through the outer areas of the core, ensuring that all modes of light reach the end at approximately the same time.
fiber optic certification
A standard multimode fiber-optic cable (the most common brand of fiber-optic cable) uses an optical fiber with a 62.5-micron core and 125-micron cladding diameter. This is commonly designated as 62.5/125 optical fibers. Because the diameter of the cladding is considerably larger than the wavelength of the light being transmitted, the light bounces around (reflects) inside the core as it is propagated along the transmission line.

Multimode fiber uses LEDs as the light-generating device. LEDs are cheaper to build, require somewhat less safety concerns, and are effective for shorter distances than the lasers used in single-mode. Multimode (62.5/125) can carry data over distances of up to 2000 meters (6,560 ft.). It is mainly used in LAN applications including backbone cabling.

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