BASIC PRINCIPLES OF FIBER OPTIC COMMUNICATION
Fiber optic communication is a communication technology
that uses light pulses to transfer information from one point to
another through an optical fiber. The information transmitted
is essentially digital information generated by telephone systems, cable television companies, and computer systems.
An optical fiber is a dielectric cylindrical waveguide made from low-loss materials, usually silicon dioxide. The core of
the waveguide has a refractive index a little higher than that of the outer medium (cladding), so that light pulses is guided
along the axis of the fiber by total internal reflection [4].
Fiber optic communication systems consists of an optical transmitter to convert an electrical signal to an optical signal for transmission through the optical fiber, a cable containing several bundles of optical fibers, optical amplifiers to boost the power of the optical signal, and an optical receiver to reconvert the received optical signal back to the original
transmitted electrical signal.
Figure 1 gives a simplified description of a basic fiber optic communication system