Optical fiber (English: Optical fiber ), referred to as optical fiber , is a fiber made of glass or plastic, which uses light to transmit light through the principle of total internal reflection in these fibers.
The tiny fiber is encapsulated in a plastic sheath that allows it to be bent without breaking. Typically, the transmitting device at one end of the fiber uses a light-emitting diode or a laser to send light pulses into the fiber, and the receiving device at the other end of the fiber uses a photosensitive component to detect the pulses. Cables that contain optical fibers are called fiber optic cables .
Because the transmission loss of information in optical fibers is much lower than that of electricity in wires, and because the main raw material is silicon, which has a huge reserve and is easy to mine, so the price is very cheap, which promotes the use of optical fibers as long-distance information transfer medium.
The main purpose of optical fiber is communication. At present, the optical fiber used for communication is basically a quartz-based optical fiber, and its main component is high-purity quartz glass, namely silicon dioxide (SiO2).
Optical fiber communication system is to use optical fiber to transmit light waves carrying information to achieve the purpose of communication.
