A fiber-optic display is a light-emitting display that uses

fiber optic An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means t ...

s to display images or text. Fiber-optic displays can either be static or dynamic, with the typical lighting source being

halogen light bulb A halogen lamp (also called tungsten halogen, quartz-halogen, and quartz iodine lamp) is an incandescent lamp consisting of a tungsten filament sealed in a compact transparent envelope that is filled with a mixture of an inert gas and a small ...

Static fiber optic displays

Static fiber optic displays have been commonly used for some types of

traffic signal Traffic lights, traffic signals, or stoplights – known also as robots in South Africa are signalling devices positioned at road intersections, pedestrian crossings, and other locations in order to control flows of traffic. Traffic lights ...

s. One common use for static fiber optic displays are

lane control lights {{unreferenced, date=March 2009 Lane control lights are a specific type of traffic light used to manage traffic on a multi-way road or highway. Typically they allow or forbid traffic to use one or more of the available lanes by the use of Green l ...

, which display either a green downward-pointing arrow or a red X to indicate the open/closed status of road lanes.

Dynamic fiber optic displays

Dynamic fiber optic displays typically display alphanumeric text, and utilize electromechanical shutters to open or close the ends of the fiber strands to display an alphanumeric pixel. These type of displays were commonly used as

variable-message sign A variable- (also changeable-, electronic-, or dynamic-) message sign, often abbreviated VMS, CMS, or DMS, and in the UK known as a matrix sign, is an electronic traffic sign often used on roadways to give travelers information about special ...

s on highways. Compared to

eggcrate display A text display is an electronic alphanumeric display device that is mainly or only capable of showing text, or extremely limited graphic characters. This includes electromechanical split-flap displays, vane displays, and flip-disc displays; all ...

s, dynamic fiber optic displays offered lower energy consumption due to requiring fewer bulbs, and offered improved nighttime legibility. For daytime legibility, they were sometimes combined with

flip-disc display The flip-disc display (or flip-dot display) is an electromechanical dot matrix display technology used for large outdoor signs, normally those that will be exposed to direct sunlight. Flip-disc technology has been used for destination signs in ...

s to be reflective in daylight and emissive at night. {{Display technology Display technology