For an
optical fiber
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
Hair is a protein filament that grows ...
, a step-index profile is a
refractive index
In optics, the refractive index (or refraction index) of an optical medium is a dimensionless number that gives the indication of the light bending ability of that medium.
The refractive index determines how much the path of light is bent, ...
profile characterized by a uniform refractive index within the
core and a sharp decrease in refractive index at the core-
cladding interface
Interface or interfacing may refer to:
Academic journals
* ''Interface'' (journal), by the Electrochemical Society
* '' Interface, Journal of Applied Linguistics'', now merged with ''ITL International Journal of Applied Linguistics''
* '' Int ...
so that the cladding is of a lower refractive index. The step-index profile corresponds to a
power-law index profile with the profile parameter approaching infinity. The step-index profile is used in most
single-mode fiber
A transverse mode of electromagnetic radiation is a particular electromagnetic field pattern of the radiation in the plane perpendicular (i.e., transverse) to the radiation's propagation direction. Transverse modes occur in radio waves and microwav ...
s and some
multimode fibers.
A step-index fiber is characterized by the core and cladding refractive indices ''n
1'' and ''n
2'' and the core and cladding radii a and b. Examples of standard core and cladding diameters 2a/2b are 8/125, 50/125, 62.5/125, 85/125, or 100/140 (units of µm). The fractional refractive-index change
. The value of n
1 is typically between 1.44 and 1.46, and
is typically between 0.001 and 0.02.
Step-index optical fiber is generally made by
doping high-purity fused
silica glass
Fused quartz, fused silica or quartz glass is a glass consisting of almost pure silica (silicon dioxide, SiO2) in amorphous (non-crystalline) form. This differs from all other commercial glasses in which other ingredients are added which change ...
(SiO
2) with different concentrations of materials like titanium, germanium, or boron.
Modal dispersion in a step index optical fiber is given by
where
:
is the fractional index of refraction
:
is the refractive index of core
:
is the length of the optical fiber under observation
:
is the speed of light.
See also
*
Graded-index fiber
*
Critical angle
Critical angle may refer to:
*Critical angle (optics), the angle of incidence above which total internal reflection occurs
*Critical angle of attack
In fluid dynamics, angle of attack (AOA, α, or \alpha) is the angle between a reference lin ...
*
Numerical aperture
In optics, the numerical aperture (NA) of an optical system is a dimensionless number that characterizes the range of angles over which the system can accept or emit light. By incorporating index of refraction in its definition, NA has the proper ...
References
Fiber optics
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