Industrialization of PLC splitter chip technology

Fiber optic communication network has become the cornerstone of today’s world of information transfer. With the further development of the network and market demand for communication bandwidth increases, the entire communication network to the part between the user’s last ten km and last km, the network part is also being optical fiber. FTTH becomes an important direction of the development of fiber optic communication network.

FTTH mainly uses PON network technology, which requires a large number of low-cost optical splitters and other optical passive. Optical splitter device is an integral part of FTTH, and with the promotion of FTTH, there would be a great market demand. The traditional preparation of optical splitter technology is fiber fused biconical taper (FBT) technology. Its characteristics are mature and simple technology. The disadvantage is that the assigned ones too large, and the device size is too large, which causedthe decrease in yield and the rising cost of single channel, shunt reactive stars uniformity will deteriorate. FBT technology based fiber optic splitter preparation techniques have been unable to adapt to the market demand.

As you can see from the perspective of development of optical devices, PLC technology has become a mainstream technology for large-scale preparation of high-performance and low-cost optical splitter. It is the use of PLC technology, to produce the optical splitter chip, coupled with the optical fiber array package, complete the preparation of the optical splitter. Its features are: small size of the device, the cost is relatively low, splitter good uniformity, at the same time, the technical threshold is relatively high, especially for production of more than large ones optical splitter, suitable for mass production. It can ensure that the light emitting device miniaturization, low cost and high performance. Analysis of PLC technology, you can see that the glass-based PLC technology has great advantages in terms of equipment investment, production costs, the optimal choice of production required for fiber-to-the-home, low-cost optical devices such as optical splitter.

International, PLC technology has been widely used in the miniaturization, high-performance optical device fabrication and production, in particular, the optical splitter chip. In China, however, the reality is that we have become a PLC encapsulation big country, but is limited to the optical splitter and optical device fabrication device coupled packaging and downstream industry chain, no one PLC chip Health line, PLC core device chip entirely dependent on imports. Which there is a problem that the core preparation technique of the PLC device lies in the outward, this has resulted in major cost control of the device is limited in the chip at the same time, which also led to the lack of technical support further to the high-end integrated chip development, severe hinder the development of our country in the PLC application.

PLC splitter chip manufacturing process PECVD (plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition) and FHD (flame hydrolysis deposition) and ion exchange. The former two with the substrate material is a silicon-based silica, and the latter with the substrate material is glass. AWG (arrayed waveguide grating) chip production, Silica optical waveguide splitter chips can be produced on silica on silicon waveguide or glass waveguide. Production by ion exchange glass waveguide PLC chip domestic number of colleges and universities have been conducting research and development, technical appraisal sample has been reached the international advanced level of similar products. The breakthrough of the results from the glass material, preparation equipment, process conditions designed to chip a full range of core technology to master the the buried low loss and low polarization characteristics PLC chip core preparation techniques.

Characteristics of the technology investment, equipment operation and low maintenance costs, simple process conditions, the production of optical passive low transmission loss and polarization characteristics with matching coupling of the fiber loss, environmental stability, and manufacturing costs low, very suitable in need of the PLC production line, can be used for producing low-cost fiber-to-the-home integrated optical splitter chip. Further pilot research and development, to solve adapted to the production of core technology, will be able to achieve your PLC splitter chip mass production.

In fact, in addition to the production of optical splitter chip, glass-based PLC technology R & D production environment with a wide range of other potential applications, for example, can be applied to detect the required light sensor.

Source: FiberStore

All-optical switch introduction

The all-optical switch is the main element in the optical communication network. As the key to realize all optical network, it has a low pumping power, high switch efficiency, fast response time characteristics, so much attention in recent years has been paid.

From the late 1980s to the present, many research groups have conducted in-depth research of all kinds of all-optical switch. All-optical switch is a very important technology, it can be applied to the field of optical communications, optical computers, optical information processing and optical data processing. Optical switch as the key components of a new generation of all-optical network, mainly used to achieve light level routing, wavelength selection, optical add-drop multiplexing and optical cross-connect and self-healing protection. Therefore, the response speed optical switch, crosstalk, insertion loss performance will directly affect the quality of optical communication. The optical networking implementation depends on the light switches, optical filter, a new generation amplifier, dense wavelength division multiplexing technology devices and technological progress.

Optical switches applications in all-optical networks in addition should have a fast response speed, low insertion loss, low channel crosstalk and polarization insensitive, should also have integration and scalability and low-cost, low-power, good thermal stability and other characteristics. All-optical switch is expected to reflect its huge potential in the following applications.

(1) The calculation speed of computer depends on the increased speed of the switching elements and chip size reduction, in which regard has encountered a bottleneck. The development of optical computer is a possible way out. Optical computers may be fast photonic switching chip and chip the outside optical interconnects constitutes. Accordingly, the optical switch is the key to the development of optical computers.

(2) Electronic communication is gradually optical fiber communication replaced in order to meet the growing demand for communication capacity. Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing technology, optical fiber communication signal transmission to achieve all optical signal exchange also rely on electronics, limiting the improvement of optical communication rate. Therefore, all-optical communication is the key to all-optical switch.

(3) Fiber optic communication systems in the long-haul network, metropolitan area network, the access network between the optical switch required by the optical cross-connects to complete; optical switch network between users rely on the OADM. The optical cross-connect and add-drop multiplexer is constituted by an optical switch array Thus, the optical switch is the basis for all-optical switching.

From the 1970s began to study the optical bistability has more than 30 years of history. However, the study of all-optical switching is also faced with many practical problems, mainly due to three reasons.

(1) All-optical switch is based on the third-order nonlinear effect. The desired optical power of switch is too high, which often takes more than the light intensity of the signal light more than five orders of magnitude. Not like the low-power electronic switch, it can’t achieve low-power light control.

(2) Due to the strong input light caused by the strong thermal effect, particularly in the dielectric absorption peak at a wavelength switching device, the heat absorption so that the device is very unstable and difficult to achieve a cascading operation of the device.

(3) The laser beam propagation in the medium microns, the power density is not high, but the nonlinear effect limited distance required to produce nonlinear power is too difficult to compress to the transverse dimension of the beam.

Therefore, reducing the switching power is the study of all-optical switch is an important task. Subject the light through the fiber waveguide or a planar integrated optical waveguide having a wavelength order of magnitude transverse dimension, can obtain a higher light power density and a longer interaction length, thereby greatly improving the efficiency of generating nonlinear optical effects, and may lower optical power to achieve all-optical switch. Waveguide-type optical switch become the main object of study. Silicon waveguides (including optical fiber) in the communication band absorption is small, but non-linear too weak, the accumulation of available ring cavity nonlinear.

Source: FiberStore

Advantages of Plastic Optical Fibers

What is plastic optical fiber? Plastic Optical Fiber (POF) is definitely an optical fiber which is made out of plastic. Because the late 1990s however, much higher-performance POF based on per fluorinated polymers has begun to appear available on the market. Plastic optical fibers are popular Nowadays.

Fiber technology is constantly on the become more flexible and less expensive. Plastic fiber optic cables are made from just one acrylic monofilament and are most efficient when used with visible red status indicator light sources. Plastic fibers are generally more cost effective than glass fiber optic cables and therefore are well suited for applications that need continuous flexing of the fiber. A wide range of fiber optic tips can be found.

In contrast, plastic optical fibers use harmless green or red light that is easily visible towards the eye. They may be safely installed in a house without risk to inquisitive children. A second advantage is their toughness. Plastic optical fibers tend to be thicker than glass optical fibers, a millimeter or more, and could be handled without special tools or techniques. You don’t have to be trained to handle and do the installation. You simply work with scissors, hook it up and it works.

In large-diameter optical fibers, 96% from the cross section is the core that enables the transmission of sunshine. Much like traditional glass optical fiber, POF transmits light with the core of the fiber. The core size POF is in some cases 100 times bigger than glass optical fiber.

plastic optical fiber optic cable

POF has been called the consumer optical fiber since the fiber and associated optical links, connectors, and installation are all inexpensive. The per fluorinated polymer fibers are generally employed for much higher-speed applications for example data center wiring and building LAN wiring. POF, using its large core, continues to be likely to function as the office and residential network media. Its large core permits the utilization of cheap injection-molded plastic connectors which can significantly lower the total link cost. But POF features its own problems. The most crucial obstacle is its high signal loss (attenuation). PMMA has been used because the light guiding core for commercially accessible step-index POF and PMMA’s attenuation is about 100 dB/km. This high attenuation significantly limits POF’s applications in data communication applying a lot more than 100m.

Here is the good news though. Developers have discovered that PF amorphous polymer based gradient-index plastic optical fibers get rid of the attenuation problem with PMMA based plastic fiber. They’ve developed PF-polymer based Gradient-Index (GI) POF with attenuation level of only 10 dB/km. According to theoretical calculation, PF-polymer based GI POF can achieve similar degree of attenuation as silica-based glass fiber of 0.3dB/km.

Having a optimized refractive-index profile within the PF-polymer based GI POF, a lot more than 10Gb/s data transmission speed can be achieved over 1km. This is the metrics of PF-polymer’s low intrinsic loss and low material dispersion. Coupled with this theoretically possible high bandwidth and occasional total link cost, PF-Polymer based gradient-index plastic optical fiber includes a huge potential in fiber optic data communication applications.

With really small diameter, the POF cable is simple to run along skirting boards, under carpets and around tight corners. It offers additional durability for uses in data communications, as well as decoration, illumination and industrial application. FiberStore can supply both simplex and duplex plastic optical fibers. Our standard color is black. Other colors are available upon request.

Source: FiberStore

Mode Conditioning Patch Cord utilized in Gigabit Ethernet Applications

Fiber optic patch cord is used to link different equipment components in a network, typically switch to switch connections, where fast efficient communication is needed. It may be terminated having a a few different connectors depending of the equipment requirements.

Fiber patch cords are occasionally called fiber jumpers and therefore are basically a length of fiber optic cable terminated with a suitable connector for the required installation. As previously described, fiber patch cables are commonly fitted with ST, SC, LC or MTRJ connectors. There are lots of types of fiber patch cords for different use. This article is about Mode Conditioning Patch Cord.

Mode Conditioning Patch Cords, also referred to as conditioned launch fiber cables, are utilized specifically in Gigabit Ethernet 1000Base-LX/LH applications where the objective is deploying new high-speed 1000Base-LX routers, switches, or optical transceivers within existing multimode system backbones. Mode conditioning patch cables are used in the 1300nm or 1310nm optical wavelength window, and cannot be utilized for 850nm short wavelength window such as 1000Base-SX. Also, any attempt to connect 1000Base-LX/LH equipment over short distances of multimode fiber without the use of mode conditioning fiber can lead to a higher bit error rate, and finally damage to the unit. Mode conditioning patch cord is made for Gigabit Ethernet multi-mode applications at 1300nm wavelength; the applying standard is IEEE 802.3z. All mode conditioning fiber optic patch cords are made with duplex cable; with a single mode to multi-mode offset fiber connection part in one of the two legs.

Mode Conditioning Patch Cord

Why do we need to use mode conditioning patch cable? The Gigabit Ethernet application standard requires the use of fiber optic light to offer the specified data transmitting rates. Usually people use long wave transceiver modules for Gigabit Ethernet. These modules have to operate both single mode and multi mode fibers. And as we all know, multi-mode fiber manufacturing techniques create index of refraction anomalies along the centerline of the multi-mode fiber core. When a highly concentrated single mode fiber optic light is sent into the center of the multi-mode fiberglass, the modes that propagate through the index of refraction anomalies disseminate over time causing modal dispersion. This effect is called differential mode delay. Differential mode delay results in reduced bandwidth over distance. By permitting the only mode laser launch to become offset from the center of the multi-mode fiber, the mode conditioning patch cord cuts down on the effect of such differential mode delay.

From the above descriptions we learn how to use such mode conditioning cables. When we use such mode conditioning fiber optic patch cords, we have to connect the yellow leg the colour of single mode to connect the transmit side from the equipment (single mode Gigabit transceiver) while we connect the orange leg the colour of multimode to the receive side (multimode Gigabit cable plant) .

Mode conditioning cables are usually utilized in pairs. This means that you will need a mode conditioning patch cable at each end to connect the gear towards the cable plant. So then these cables are usually ordered in even numbers. The typical reason someone may order one cable is so they may keep it as a spare. In case your gigabit LX switch comes with SC or LC connectors, make sure to connect the yellow leg (singlemode) from the cable towards the transmit side, and also the orange leg (multimode) towards the receive side of the equipment. It’s imperative this configuration be maintained on both ends. The swap of transmit and receive only works in the cable plant side. Mode conditioning fiber optic patch cord are utilized typically when you wish to run Gigabit Ethernet (LX) over some multi-mode fiber optic plant.

In FiberStore, mode conditioning cables are compliant with IEEE 802.3Z standard. FiberStore supplies mode conditioning patch cables with SC, ST, LC, MTRJ fiber optic connectors.

Source: FiberStore

Buy Fiber Patch Cables on line

Quality and significance of the fiber patch cable can be analyzed effortlessly if you are planning to figure out its characteristics thorough. You should make sure that you’re going to obtain such cords for your network which could provide benefits on long term basis and you should not get yourself stuck inside a series of complications.

Poor selection or selection of patch cables can be very problematic and you’ve got to go through odd consequences due to poor selection. Therefore, the significance of best quality can’t be neglected and for this purpose make sure that you will improvise a very good method in order to attain perfect cabling for the networks.

There are numerous cables which can be included in your considerations though when it comes to the very best cable you might not be able to find something better still than OM3 cable. If you are not interested in high speed networking you’ll be able to either get OM1 or OM2 but if your requirements of networking are very high then it continues to be recommended that you should be getting OM3. There are many benefits which may be attained with ease if you are going to get this particular cable. One of the leading advantages of this cabling is your data transmission rate can jump as much as 10GB and there won’t be any complications for you regarding reliability and performance. All you need to do would be to just look for a very good and reliable provider which could surely help you get this cabling setup effortlessly as well as your complete satisfaction continues to be guaranteed without any issues.

Compared to the single mode patch cable, OM1 and OM2 multi-mode fiber patch cables were considered to be very fine because of better capability to handle speed in addition to good stability of performance. However, as time is progressing the requirements of networking continues to be increased a lot and one may have to have more data transfer rate with this network which is not possible if you are using these cables. Therefore, something and vital is required in order to avoid numerous complications and one of the best methods which may be improvised for this function is to look upon internet.

There are many providers which are making themselves available through web and you may even but their products and add these to your shopping cart without going anywhere. This method can be really handy if you are looking for a very good cable having superb qualities and benefits. You will see just no issues to get superb results if you are going to get a excellent provider which could help you get the latest OM3 cables having Duplex Multi-mode ability. There are lots of those who are looking for long term benefits though they are not able to have them because of availability issues but if you are going to get cables from web providers then there won’t be any issues for you regarding availability. All you need to do would be to just look for a top notch provider which could allow you to get best cables effortlessly. You can have a look at their online galleries and discover the cable according to your preference as well as.

Once you are capable of finding one then your next thing would be to place your order and you can simply add the item in your shopping cart. Various good providers (for instance, FiberStore)are also offering shipping services so you’ll be capable of getting your product or service at the doorstep. There won’t be any complications for you to get everything based on your requirements, perceptions and expectations if you are planning to place your order from the very reliable and authenticated source. This requires special knowledge and guidance though you can improvise a depth search for it and you’ll surely find the best provider with ease.

Source: http://www.fiberstore.com/

What Exactly Are Fiber Patch Cables

In this modern world, fiber optics are gaining more and more popularity among the communication networks. They’re trusted in every kind of communication nowadays this special kind of cables are the back bone of each and every known network whether it’s telecommunication or live broadcasting Television channels. When bulk data transfer is needed then top end fiber communication is considered as the best choice. Nowadays of fiber data is transferred in the form of light pulses. It was small introduction, now we come towards fiber optic patch cables.

Fiber optic patch cable is a two-fiber cable that uses exactly the same connector type and optical fiber type because the optical fiber cabling that it is connected to. Sometimes we aslo refer to it as a fiber optic jumper. The terms fiber optic patch cable and fiber optic jumper are often interchanged but as it happens they are different. An area cable is really a two-fiber cable, however the term fiber optic jumper is usually used to describe a single-fiber cable.

Fiber jumper is defined in IEEE 802.3 as an optical jumper cable assembly used for bidirectional transmission and reception of information. A fiber jumper can be a single-fiber cable or a multi-fiber cable. The jumper cable attached to the source of light is known as the transmitter jumper. The fiber jumper cable attached to the fiber optic power meter is known as the receiver jumper. But you may also see these test fiber jumpers referred to as a reference jumper. However they are named, fiber jumpers are a critical a part of your fiber optic test equipment setup.

Fiber patch cables are like joints, these are used to join 2 kinds of optic cables in order to make a third connection out. The first thing that is most important, while choosing the patch cable is the compatibility of those patch cables with the original cable. When you purchase the wrong cable then, it won’t work. Second thing may be the rate of information transfer. Different types of these cables have different data transfer rate and when you need to join them through patch cables then you need to make sure that the information rate of patch cables should match the information rate of original cable if this doesn’t match then, you will see a lag in communication which could cause a delay or total loss of information.

There are some other advantages too. For instance they offer a very high-speed of information transfer. Fiber optic cables are made to possess a little more speed than usual fiber cables to complement what’s needed when they are adjusted towards the network. Another factor that is higher in such cables is band width. These offer a high bandwidth than normal fiber optic cables. Last but not the least is the security factor. These patches are made very secure to operate at any level which is nearly impossible to interrupt into them.

These are the best answer for your home communication needs. Whether you’ll need a high speed internet connection or else you wish to connect your TV with a satellite antenna. These patch cables would be best since you just need to bring them and fasten them with any place in the fiber network and they’ll fulfill all your needs. So I we do hope you will consider fiber patch cables for your home communication needs after reading a lot of advantages and also because I have installed them inside my own home. They’re little expensive but that comes with quality.

Source: http://www.fiberstore.com/

What Exactly Are Fiber Optic Attenuators

A fiber optic attenuator, also called an optical attenuator, simulates losing the could be caused by a long period of fiber. Typically, this device performs receiver testing. While an optical attenuator can simulate the optical loss of an extended period of fiber, it can’t accurately simulate the dispersion that would be caused by a long length of fiber.

Put it simply, for a fiber optic receiver, too much light can overload it and degrade the bit error ratio. In order to achieve the best bit error ratio (BER), the light power should be reduced. Fiber optic attenuators fit the requirement perfectly. This could happen when the transmitter delivers too much power for example once the transmitter is simply too near to the receiver.

How Does a Fiber Attenuator Work?

Attenuators are like your sunglasses, which absorbs the extra light energy and protect your eyes from being dazzled. Attenuators normally have a working wavelength range in which they absorb the sunshine energy equally.

An essential characteristic of a good fiber attenuator is that they should not reflect the light, instead, they should absorb the extra light without being damaged. Because the light power used in fiber optic communications are fairly low, they usually could be absorbed without noticeable damage to the attenuator itself.

Types of Optical Attenuators

Two types of fiber optic attenuators exist: fixed value attenuators and variable optical attenuators.

Fixed value attenuators have fixed values that are specified by decibels. Their applications include telecommunication networks, optical fiber test facility, Lan(LAN) and CATV systems. For instance, a -3dB attenuator should reduce concentration of the output by 3 dB(50%). Fixed value attenuator’s attenuation value can’t be varied. The attenuation is expressed in dB. The operating wavelength for optical attenuators ought to be specified for that rated attenuation, because optical attenuation of a material varies with wavelength. Fixed value attenuators are comprised of two big groups: In-line type and connector type. In-line type appears like an ordinary fiber patch cable; it has a fiber cable terminated with two connectors which you’ll specify types. Connector type attenuator looks like a bulk head fiber connector, it has a male end and a female end. It mates to regular connectors of the identical type for example FC, ST, SC and LC.

Variable optical attenuators come with a variety of designs. They’re general used for testing and measurement, but they also possess a wide usage in EDFAs for equalizing the sunshine power among different channels. One type of variable optical attenuator is made on the D-shaped fiber as a type of evanescent field device. If your bulk external material, whose refractive index is larger compared to mode effective index, replaces a part of the evanescent field reachable cladding, the mode can become leaky plus some from the optical power could be radiated. If the index from the external material could be changed with a controllable mean, with the effects for example thermo-optic, electro-optic, or acoustic-optic, a device with controllable attenuation is achievable.

Other types of variable optical attenuators include air gap, clip-on, 3-step and more.

Source: http://www.fiberstore.com/

Applications of fiber optic cables and fiber patch cords

There many uses for fiber optic cables and fiber patch cords so if you’re in an industry which makes use of fraxel treatments you with thankful to know there are lots of places online where one can visit get these cables at affordable prices. Searching on the internet you’ll find the thing you need and get plenty of cables and accessories that can make simpler and fulfill your primary objective.

Fiber optic cables and fiber optic patch cords represent an evolution of technology allowing people to accomplish stuff that they would not have access to been able to before technology was invented making readily available for a variety of projects. Here’s some useful information on fiber optic cables and fiber optic patch cords as well as their application.

Practical Applications

When it comes to the practical application, fiber optic cables and fiber optic patch cords have many different uses and therefore are reliable in several situations. This is in fact a really versatile technology and many great uses have been devised which have greatly benefited human civilization all over the world. Thanks to fraxel treatments that we are able to continually move ahead like a civilization and individuals.

One of the many applications of this technology is internal illumination during dentistry. This will make it a lot easier for that dentist and it is assistants to obtain the job finished having a greater degree of accuracy as well as in less time. Lots of people have benefited from this with no one can deny how useful this technology has been for dentists all over the world.

Fiber-optic technology has been important for image transfer devices such as in the case of televisions and other similar forms of technology. This has transformed the way people live by providing them with fast and accurate use of information via a very large number of mediums.

Fiber Optic Communications

The arrival of fiber optic communications thanks to fiber optic cables and fiber optic patch cords makes life much easier around the world in several ways. We can’t underestimate the significance of this technology and just how it’s played a job within the ever-increasing growth of civilization and technological progress.

In fact NASA even used fiber optic cables in the camcorders they sent the moon. This unique feat means lots of people to witness this historic event in history and marvel at use of human ingenuity in a practical application.

Telecommunication and Computer Networking

Fiber optic cables and fiber optic patch cords have been essential in the advent of telecommunication and computer networking. Thanks the fact that they are highly flexible and can be bundled as cables it has allowed the technology to advance to the level it’s achieved today and approaches true potential.

It is also useful for saving space in confined areas for example offices. It’s because the truth that they seem to fiber optic cable can carry much more data an electric cable. Because of this factor fiber optic cables have really contributed heavily to internetwork communications and efficient system relays allowing a larger degree of accuracy and efficiency.

Source: http://www.fiberstore.com/

Why we need a Fiber Optic Amplifier

The fiber optic amplifier plays a significant and key role within the enhancing the capacity for a communication system to deliver information. The light signals can be transmitted by the use of optical transmitters, optical receivers and optical fiber.

The optical amplifier is a device amplifying an optical signal directly, without the need to first convert it to an electrical signal. The most popular parameter of gain from it is bandwidth and noise performance. It’s compensation for the wakening of knowledge throughout the transmission, due to fiber optic attenuation. The wavelength and also the power of the input fiber signal are decided through the fans.

Fiber optic amplifier has industry’s highest color resolution and simple amplifier, and sensor setup will lead to enhanced stability for previously difficult detection applications. What is more, it can offer you very high-output powers with diffraction-limited beam quality when utilizing it. Its saturation characteristics have the ability to prevent any intersymbol interference so that it is vital for optical fiber communications. That fiber amplifiers are often operated in the strongly saturated regime enables the highest output power. The amplified spontaneous emission will affect its gain achievable. It’s important to safeguard a high-gain amplifier from the parasitic reflections, for the parasitic laser oscillation or perhaps to fiber will be damaged by these.

Optical amplifiers could be transferred in the forward direction, in the backward direction, or bidirectional. However, its direction from the pump wave won’t modify the small-signal gain, the ability efficiency of the saturated amplifier as well as the noise characteristics. Furthermore, the amplification of a weak signal-impulse in a monocentrics nonlinear medium could be allowed because of it. Along with the advancement of we’ve got the technology, the caliber of it’s been improved greatly that it is well-liked by many companies. Besides, there are all sorts of products on the market so the people might have more opportunities to pick one that’s ideal for their needs.

However, when it comes to choice for the fiber optic amplifier, the best solution is to figure out the best providers that focus on this type of products. Because the components of this kind of products are complex, and you’re simply unfamiliar with the related details about it. The professional providers can use their professional knowledge and lots of years of experiences to provide you with wise advice, which can help you make a right decision. Of course, some providers provides you with certain warranty so that you can take it to their company for repair when it reduces.

CATV EDFA is a type of fiber optic amplifier. It is used to increase the output power of the transmitter and prolong the signal transmission distance. It’s widely requested TV signals, video, telephone, and data long haul transmission. FiberStore provides high output power and low noise EDFA CATV Amplifiers with selection of output power from 14dBm to 27dBm to meet the requirements of a high-density solution for the large-scale distribution of broadband CATV video and knowledge signals to video overlay receivers in a FTTH/FTTP or PON system.

Source: http://www.fiberstore.com/

A new type of Optical Switch using a quantum dot

An optical switch developed at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) spurs the mark integration of photonics and electronics.

What, isn’t electronics adequate? Well, nothing travels faster than light, as well as in your time and effort to hurry in the processing andtransmission of knowledge, the combined use of photons along with electrons is desirable for developing a workable opto-electronic protocol. The JQI switch can steer a beam of light from one direction toanother in only 120 picoseconds, requiring hardly any power, no more than 90 atto joules. At the wavelength used, in the near infrared,this amounts to about 140 photons. This is actually the setup of a waveguide made from a photonic crystal, a great device put into the fiber optic transmission area.

A quantum dot is placed inside a tiny zone free from holes. Light is distributed into and from the waveguide via endcaps. If properly timed, a pump laser pulse allows probe pulse to exit the side. When the probe and pump beams are not aligned, the probe beam will exit the farend of the waveguide. The center piece of most electronic gear is the transistor, a solid-state component where a gate signal is used to a nearby tiny conducting pathway, thus switching on and off the passage of the information signal.

The analogous process in photonics would be a solid-state component which provides a gate, enabling or disabling the passage of light through a nearby waveguide, or as a router,for switching beams in different directions. Within the JQI experiment, prepared and conducted in the University of Maryland and at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) by Edo Waks and his colleagues, an all-optical switch has been created utilizing a quantum dot placed in the resonant cavity. The dot, consisting of a nm-sized sandwich of the elements indium and arsenic, is so tiny that electrons moving inside can emit light at only discrete wavelengths, as though the dot were an atom. The quantum dot sits inside a photonic crystal, a material that has been tired of many tiny holes.

The holes preclude the passage of sunshine with the crystal except for a narrow wavelength range. Actually, the dot sits in the small hole-free arcade which acts just like a resonant cavity. When light travels on the nearby waveguide a lot of it gets into the cavity, where it interacts using the quantum dot. And it is this interaction which could transform the waveguide’s transmission properties. Although 140 photons are needed in the waveguide to create switching action,only about 6 photons actually are required to bring about modulationof the quantum dot, thus throwing the switch.

Previous optical switches happen to be able to work only by utilizing bulky nonlinear-crystals and high input power. The JQI switch, by comparison, achieves high-nonlinear interactions using a single quantum dot and very low power input. Switching required only 90 atto joules of power, some five times less than the very best previous reported device made at labs in Japan, which itself used 100 times less power than other all-optical switches. Japan switch, however, has the advantage of operating at room temperature, as the JQI switch needs a temperature close to 40 K.

Continuing our analogy with electronics: light traveling on the waveguide by means of an information-carrying beam could be switched from one direction to another using the presence of asecond pulse, a control beam. To steer the probe beam the side from the device, the slightly detuned pump beam needs toarrive simultaneously with the probe beam, that is on resonance with the dot. The dot lies just off the middle tabs on the waveguide, inside the cavity. The temperature from the quantum dot is tuned to become resonant using the cavity, leading to strong coupling. If the pump beam doesn’t reach the same time as the probe, the probe beam will exit in another direction.

Source: http://www.fiberstore.com/

What you need to know before you purchase Fiber Optic Attenuators

So why do We Need a Fiber Optic Attenuator?

Bigger is much better, right? Or so many people believe. Beginners in fiber optic technology are often confused with why optic attenuators should reduce light intensity. Aren’t we using amplifiers to improve the signal electricity? The fact is that too much light can overload a fiber optic receiver. Optical fiber attenuators are needed when a transmitter delivers too much light, such as when a transmitter is very close to the receiver.

So how exactly does a Fiber Attenuator Work?

Attenuators usually works by absorbing the sunshine, such as a neutral density thin film filter. Or by scattering the sunshine such as an air gap. They should not reflect the light since that could cause unwanted back reflection within the fiber system. Another type of attenuator utilizes a length of high-loss optical fiber, that operates upon its input optical signal power level in such a way that it is output signal power level is less than the input level. The power reduction are done by such means as absorption, reflection, diffusion, scattering, deflection, diffraction, and dispersion, etc.

What’s the Most Important Feature Should a Fiber Attenuator Have?

The most crucial spec of an attenuator is its attenuation versus wavelength curve. Attenuators should have the same impact on all wavelengths used in the fiber system or at least as flat as possible. For instance, a 3dB attenuator at 1500nm should also lessen the concentration of light at 1550nm by 3dB or as close as possible, this is also true inside a WDM (Wavelength Division Multiplexing) system.

Different Types of Attenuators

There are two functional kinds of fiber attenuators: plug style (including bulkhead) and in-line. A plug style attenuator is utilized like a male-female connector where attenuation occurs inside the device, that’s, on the light path from one ferrule to another. Included in this are FC fiber optic attenuator, LC attenuator, SC attenuator, ST attenuator and much more. An in-line attenuator is connected to a transmission fiber by splicing its two pigtails.

The key of operation of attenuators are markedly different simply because they use various phenomena to lower the power of the propagating light. The easiest means would be to bend a fiber. Coil an area cable several times around a pencil while measuring the attenuation with a power meter, then tape this coil. Then you definitely got a primitive but working attenuator.

Most attenuators have fixed values which are specified by decibels (dB). They’re called fiber optic fixed attenuator. For instance, a -3dB attenuator should reduce intensity of the output by 3dB. Manufacturers use various light-absorbing material to attain well-controlled and stable attenuation. For instance, a fiber doped with a transition metal that absorbs light in a predictable way and disperses absorbed energy as a heat.

Variable optical attenuator is also available, but it is usually a precision instrument utilized in making measurements. From FiberStore, you can get the best Variable Attenuators Instrument.

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What is Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexer

In the fiber optic network which uses wavelength division multiplexing (WDM), reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) is used to remotely add, block, pass or redirect modulated light emissions-infrared and visible-within a range of wavelengths.

With ROADM devices, signal switching doesn’t need optical-to-electric and electric-to-optical conversions. Instead, outgoing light beams can be generated, incoming beams could be terminated or beams could be passed through the device unmodified. This is achieved through wavelength-selective switch (WSS) components within the device.

A ROADM allows remote configuration and reconfiguration of emissions; bandwidth could be assigned when needed and without interrupting concurrent traffic, and power balancing is automatic. Most ROADM devices use technologies according to first-generation, wavelength blocking (WB) or second generation, planar light-wave circuit (PLC) technology. Whenever a wavelength change is required inside a specific channel, these technologies filter light emissions, extract data and impress data onto another emission. This method is more streamlined using PLC technology.

The different switching technologies in ROADM devices include microelectronic mirrors, live view screen, thermo-optic and beam-steering switches in planar waveguide circuits, and tunable optical filters.

ROADM devices were initially used in long-haul DWDM equipment. By 2005, metropolitan networks began using ROADMs in reaction to increased interest in Ethernet, as well as high-speed data, audio and video services. Within the ensuing years, ROADM devices have brought bandwidth flexibility and operational efficiency to networks. ROADM-based networks are enabling an automated optical layer with dynamic multipoint connectivity, independent wavelength add-drop, remote bandwidth allocation that has been enhanced power management capabilities.

Combined with the benefits of ROADM comes the inevitable need for fiber optic testing that safeguards function and helps to make sure performance. Here are common testing-related challenges to consider in ROADM-based networks.

1. Increases both in insertion loss per node and insertion loss per channel

2. The need to measure optical loss per channel for multiple ROADM configurations

3. The necessity to measure optical signal-to-noise ratios utilizing a precise and repeatable method

4. The impact of possible bandwidth thinning, other changes to bandwidth, and dispersion, that is of particular concern in multiple cascaded devices and 40 Gbit/s systems

5. Compliance using the optical transport network (OTN) standard-ITU-T G.709 standard

Unlike the optical add-drop multiplexer, Capabilities of ROADM test equipment should encompass optical spectrum analysis (OSA), and OTN performance qualifiers for newly commissioned links, along with the transport layer and all ROADM-supported interfaces. Major manufacturers of OSA and related electronic test equipment include, FiberStore, Anritsu, Digital Lightwave, Exfo and JDSU Test.

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Higher Data Throughput From Multimode Fiber Patch Cables

Information available at our fingertips in form of digital data today has swelled up to levels which had never been before. At the same time, real time communication has exponentially increased to extremely high levels. A whole class of applications have emerged that demand for transmission of high-speed data.

Necessity may be the mother of invention – optical fiber networks have been invented and deployed to solve the problem of high volume data exchange. And multimode fiber patch cables have grown to be the very first choice one of the different connectors of the wired carriers with endpoint devices.

What are the speed-hungry and volume-hungry data centric applications that have created this entire demand? Some examples of those applications are the Internet, the local area multi-computer networks, the phone networks and the ATM networks. There are many more applications with intense hunger for fast communication resources. For those practical purposes, these communication channels need a high-speed network that can carry enormous volumes of data with minimal attenuation and extreme accuracy. The modern fiber optic cable technology provides exactly this sort of communication.

The multimode patch cables are used to connect this data transmitted over the network towards the devices that they target to cater. These patches may also be used to connect the two loose ends of two fiber optic cables. The patch cables have to be multimode when the requirement is to support multimode optical fibers.

What is a multimode cable poor fiber optics? A multimode is one in which multiple packets of data can be simultaneously carried across the wire. The result is that the network can carry numerous data packets at a instant of time. The multimode mainline network cables are usually short long since the target with these cables is to support high speed and high power multiuser systems in a localized sense. The patches are compatible with the network cables to enable the machine remain aligned with the network objectives. Consequently the multimode patches support multiple user applications transferring data simultaneously, as well as retain the qualities of standard single mode patches like the high network speed, low network hindrances and occasional external interferences.

It’s also interesting to note that the end point devices these patch cables connect can be heterogeneous in nature. The aperture the end point device requires and types of applications supported may be diverse. There exist several different kinds of multimode fiber patch cables you can use based upon the requirements. And depending upon the exact reason why you have to install the patch on your fiber optic network, you shall need to select your patch and go ahead with the required installation.

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Fiber Optic Transmission

Optical fiber may be the medium of choice for high capacity digital transmission systems and speed local area network. Besides these applications, optical fiber is also used to transmit microwave signals for cable tv, cellular radio, WLAN and microwave antenna remoting. To deliver microwave over optical fiber, the microwave signal is converted into optical form in the input from the fiber and at the creation of the fiber, it’s converted back to electrical signal. The benefit of fiber transmission of microwave is reduced losses in accordance with metallic media (e.g. copper coaxial cable). This leads to longer transmission distance without signal amplification or utilization of repeaters.

There are two approaches to optical signal modulation and recovery. The very first type is IMDD (Intensity Modulation Direct Detection) and also the second type is Coherent Detection. In IMDD, the optical source intensity is modulated through the microwave signal and also the resulting intensity modulated signal passes through the optical fiber to a photodiode where the modulation microwave signal is converted to electrical domain. In Coherent Detection, the optical source is modulated in intensity, frequency or phase by the microwave signal. The modulated signal goes through the optical fiber towards the receiver where it is mixed with the creation of a local oscillator (LO) laser. The combined signal is converted to electrical domain using a photodiode. This produces an electric signal dedicated to the main difference frequency between the optical source and the LO laser (i.e. intermediate frequency). This signal is further processed to recuperate the analog microwave signal.

RFoG (Radio Frequency over Glass) is the cable operators’ implementation of microwave transmission over optical fiber where the coax portion of the HFC (Hybrid Fiber Coax) is substituted with a single fiber, passive optical network architecture (PON). RFoG allows cable operators to deploy fiber connectivity to customer premises (FTTP) while keeping its existing HFC and DOCSIS infrastructure. Such as the HFC architecture, video controllers and knowledge networking services are fed through a CMTS/edge router.

These electrical signals are then converted to optical and transported via a 1550 nm wavelength via a wavelength division multiplexer (WDM) and a passive optical splitter to a R-ONU (RFoG Optical Network Unit) located at the customer premises. R-ONUs terminate the fiber connection and convert the traffic to RF for delivery over the in-home network. Video traffic could be fed over coax to a set-top box, while voice and knowledge traffic could be delivered to an embedded multimedia terminal adapter (eMTA), The return path for voice, data, and video visitors are on the 1310 nm or 1590 nm wavelength to some return path receiver, which converts the optical signal to RF and feeds it back into the CMTS and video controller.

The benefit of radio-over-fiber technologies are that it centralizes the majority of the transceiver functionality by transmitting the microwave signals within their modulated format over fiber. This reduces the number of access suggests antennas with amplifiers and frequency converters. In-building passive picocell for GSM or UMTS is implemented using radio-over-fiber. Wireless base stations are located in a central communications room as well as their outputs/inputs fed through RF multiplexers to lasers/photodiodes contained within the optical transceiver hub. The modulated optical signals are linked to/from the remote antenna units (AUs) within the building using single-mode optical fiber. The bottom station utilizes a combined detector/optical modulator, that is directly coupled to the antenna, to ensure that no electrical amplification or any other processing is needed.

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Development and Application of Plastic Optical Fiber

The plastic optical fiber (POF) constituts that the optical fiber core and cladding are made of plastic material. Compared with large core diameter 50/125um and 62.5/125um quartz glass multimode fiber, plastic optical fiber core diameter is up to 200-1000um, while continuing to use without the optical fiber positioning sleeve cheap injection-molded plastic connector, even The fiber splice SMIC alignment generated the ± 30um deviation does not affect the coupling loss. It is plastic optical fiber structure gives the quick construction, connecting and low cost. In addition, the core diameter of 100um or larger and it is possible to eliminate noise in the the mold presence of the multimode fiber of quartz glass.

In recent years, Europe and Japan and other countries made important progress in the development of POF fiber. The development of plastic optical fiber, optical loss rate has dropped from 25 to 9 dB/km. Its wavelength has been extended to 870 microns (near infrared light), close to the practical level of the quartz glass fiber. United States developed a the PFX plastic series fiber has excellent anti-radiation performance. In addition, Boston, Massachusetts, fiber developed the Opti-Giga plastic optical fiber is compelling, it is not only lighter than glass, flexible better, lower cost, and data transmission speed of 3 megabits per second in the 100 meters . Such a fiber can also use the refraction of light or optical fibers within the jump way to achieve a higher transmission speed. Now the United States and Europe has plastic optical fiber used for short-distance transmission, such as automotive, medical equipment, copiers.

Japan attaches great importance to the application of plastic optical fiber, several years ago, NEC, Fujitsu, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Inc. 45 optical communications, multimedia products manufacturers jointly announced, will work together to achieve the plastic optical fiber have been successfully developed in Japan practical use. Plastic optical fiber production, Japan is also the world’s largest producers of plastic optical fiber, however, in Europe to promote the development of new applications of plastic optical fiber and fiber inspection standards. The second half of 2001, the European plastic optical fiber industrial development stage, this time to establish a new approach to development of the European plastic optical fiber test and measurement. The world’s first dedicated Plastic Optical Fiber Application Center (POFAC) in Nuremberg, Germany completed. Germany using plastic optical fiber has been developed multimedia bus system MOST (24Mbit/s), and several car manufacturers, the system has been incorporated into their products. BMW has created a record 100m plastic optical fiber in the new 7 series. Europe 2001 plastic fiber Symposium and European Fiber Communication Conference held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. German automotive industry not only to promote the application of plastic optical fiber, but also contributed to the establishment of the plastic optical fiber test and measurement standards.

Japan has also established a plastic optical fiber standards, but these standards to the European Community is invalid. Japanese Industrial Standards is given only for the standard of a new type of plastic optical fiber, a numerical aperture of 0.5, and only the 650nm wavelength. The standard does not mention the different excitation light conditions in the plastic optical fiber, there is no provision must be formed in the plastic optical fiber equilibrium mode distribution.

Plastic optical fiber, compared with the glass fiber, although the light-transmitting differential, light loss is large, the initial ships of 300 dB/km, the transmission optical narrow band (limited to the visible region), is that it is difficult to adapt to the needs of the multimedia communication network, but it has light and soft, flexural, impact strength, cheap, anti-radiation, easy to process and can be made (1 to 3 mm in diameter, in order to increase the light-angle, expand the scope of) a series of advantages, so favored. In addition, the light passes through the central portion of the plastic optical fiber diameter of about 1 mm, about 100 times larger than the glass fiber, and the connection between the fiber connection and personal computer terminal apparatus is very easy. Plastic optical fiber installation costs low, very simple installation can align the connector plug, this plug can be used existing technology to produce.

The plastic optical fiber as the ideal short-range communication network transmission medium, in the future family of intelligent, office automation, industrial control network. Car airborne communications network, has an important position in military communication network and multimedia equipment in the data transmission.

Using plastic optical fibers, we can realize the smart appliances (home PC, HDTV, phone, digital imaging equipment, home security equipment, air conditioning, refrigerator, sound system, kitchen appliances, etc.) networking, to reach home automation and remote control and management, improve quality of life; through plastic optical fiber, we can achieve office equipment, networking, computer networking can achieve parallel processing computer, high-speed transmission of data between office equipment can greatly improve the work efficiency, remote office?

Low-speed LAN 100Mbps data rate is less than the transmission within 100 meters of with SI index plastic optical fiber to achieve; within 150Mbps50 meters transmission used a small numerical aperture of POF achieve.

POF cable is available a wide range of applications in the manufacturing industry. Converter, POF connector with RS232, RS422, 100Mbps Ethernet, Token Ring and other standard protocols, resulting in harsh industrial manufacturing environments to provide a stable, reliable communication lines. Capable of high-speed transmission of industrial control signals and instructions, to avoid electromagnetic interference by using a metal cable lines lead to the risk of interruption of communication transmission.

With the development of science and technology, more and more fields of application of plastic optical fiber, the development of the market will be more and more broad. Abroad on the application and development of plastic optical fiber has been achieved greater results, and continue to increase applied research investment, South Korea, China and Taiwan manufacturers have begun to develop production, the industry should be on the plastic optical fiber of research and development to be closely watched.

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What is Fiber Optic Pigtail

Fiber optic pigtail is a fiber cable end with fiber optic connectors at only either side of the cable while leaving sleep issues no connectors, so the connector side could be from the equipment and the other part can be melted with optical cable fibers.

Fiber optic pigtails are utilized to achieve accurate mounting for precision alignment of fiber optical components. They're usually used with fiber optic management equipment like ODF, splice closures and cross cabinets.

A fiber pigtail is really a single, short, usually unbuffered, optical fiber which has an optical connector pre-installed on one end along with a period of exposed fiber in the other end. The end of the pigtail is stripped and fusion spliced to a single fiber of a multi-fiber trunk. Splicing of pigtails to each fiber within the trunk "breaks out" the multi-fiber cable into its component fibers for connection to the end equipment.

Fiber pigtails can have female or male connectors. Female connectors might be mounted in a patch panel, often in pairs although single-fiber solutions exist, to allow them to be connected to endpoints or other fiber runs with patch fibers. Alternatively they can have male connectors and plug directly into an optical transceiver.

As the fibers must have connectors fitted before they can affix to other equipment. Fiber pigtails may be one of the common solutions for fiber cable termination, the inclusion of connectors to every optical fiber in a cable.

FiberStore supplies 10G 50/125, 62.5/125, 50/125 multimode optic pigtail with SC, ST, FC, LC MT-RJ, SC/APC, FC/APC, E2000 fiber optic connectors. Fan-out fiber optic pigtail is really a multi fiber cable assembly. It is almost always made from a multi fiber count cable, in the center of which we make use of the splitting kits to help make the fan-out pigtails. Such cable is usually 1XN structure, like MTP to 12 LC. Sometimes there's also NXN types, like 12LC to 12LC. Usually the simplex fiber optic pigtails that used inside management equipment use 0.9mm outer diameter cable. There is waterproof fiber optic pigtails employed for outdoor applications. This fiber optic pigtail is by using thick PE jacket and large diameter. For example, ribbon fan-out patch cord provides a stable and reliable connection for single mode fiber.

Brief Introduction to Optical Switch

The advent and development of fiber optic communication technology has brought a revolutionary change to the communications industry. Nowadays in the world, about 85% of communication services via optical fiber transmission, long haul network and local relay network has been widely using fiber optics.

Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology development and maturation has opened up a vast space for the full application of the bandwidth and capacity of optical fiber transmission. With a high rate, large bandwidth obvious advantage, DWDM optical communication network has become the development of communication network trend. Especially in recent years, an IP-based Internet business explosive growth, this growth trend has not only changed the relationship between the IP network layer and the underlying transport network, and the networking of the entire network, the node design, management and control new requirements.

An intelligent network architecture – Automatic Switched Optical Network (ASON) has become a research hotspot of today’s systems. Its core node optical cross-connect (OXC). Constitute dynamic wavelength routing and optical network flexible and effective management can be realized by the OXC equipment. OXC technology is one of the key technologies increasingly complex DWDM network, optical switch for switching the optical path of functional devices, is a key part of the OXC. Optical switch matrix is ​​the core part of the OXC, it can achieve dynamic optical path management, optical network fault protection, wavelength dynamic allocation function, the solution to the current complex network of wavelength contention and improve the wavelength reuse, flexible configuration of the network are There is of great significance.

Optical switch is not only the core device in OXC, but also widely used in the following areas.

(1) Optical network protection switching system, the actual optical transmission system have left spare fibers when working channel transmission interruption or performance degradation to a certain extent, the main signal light switch automatically go to standby fiber system transmission, so that the receiving end received normal signal and feeling less than the network has a fault, the network nodes connected in a ring to further improve the survivability of the network.

(2) Real-time network performance monitoring system, remote fiber test points, 1 × N multi-channel optical switch, a plurality of optical fibers connected to the Optical Time Domain Reflectometer, real-time network monitoring, computer-controlled optical switch switching sequence and time to achieve the detection of all fiber, and test results are returned to the network control center, once found a road problems, can be processed directly in the network management center.

(3) The light switch is also used in optical fiber communication device testing system and metropolitan area networks, the poor access network/multiplexing and switching equipment. The introduction of the light switch in the future all-optical networks more flexible, intelligent, survivability. Optical switching technology has become the key to future optical networking, optical switching technology plays an increasingly important role in the field of communication, automatic control.

In many types of optical switches, MEMS optical switch is considered most likely to become the mainstream of the optical switch device. In this paper, an overview of the basis of the principle characteristics of a variety of optical switch on, the focus of several major MEMS optical switch, and outlined their structure and performance characteristics.

Production Process of Fiber Optic Splitter with Advantages and Disadvantages

Fiber optic splitter (optical splitter) is also known as “non-wavelength selective optical branching device”. It is a fiber optic device used to achieve a particular band optical signal power splitter and redistribution.

Optical splitter can be used as a stand-alone device in the OLT node, the light distribution point and the FTTH point. It can also be placed in the central office wiring facilities, the light distribution points and FTTH points within the facility (integrated design or plug-in).

In accordance with the production process, optical splitters are divided into Fused Bi-conical Taper (FBT Splitter) and Planar Lightwave Circuit (PLC Splitter).

FBT Splitter (FBT Coupler)

Fused Bi-conical Taper technique is tied to two or more fibers, and then melted in a cone machine, pull tensile and real-time monitoring of changes in splitting ratio, the splitting ratio to meet the requirements after the end of the melt stretching, and wherein one end of a fiber optic reserved ( The remaining cut off) as the input terminal and the other end a multitude of road outputs. Mature tapering process can only pull 1 × 4. 1 × 4 or more devices, with a plurality of 1 × 2 connected together. Then the overall package in the splitter box.

Advantages
(1) pull taper coupler over twenty years of history and experience, many equipment and processes simply follow the only development funds only a few of the PLC tenth or hundredth of a few
(2) Raw materials only readily available quartz substrate, fiber optics, heat shrink tubing, stainless steel pipe and less plastic, a total of not more than $ 1. Investment in machinery and equipment depreciation costs less, 1 × 2,1 × 4 and other low-channel splitter low cost.
(3) splitting ratio can be real-time monitoring, you can create unequal splitter.

Disadvantages
(1) Loss of light sensitive wavelength ships according to the wavelength selection device, in this triple-play during use is a fatal defect, since the triple play of light transmitted signal 1310nm, 1490nm, 1550nm, and other multiple-wavelength signal.
(2) poor uniformity, 1×4 nominal about 1.5dB away, 1 × 8 or more away from larger, can not ensure uniform spectroscopic, which may affect the overall transmission distance.
(3) Insertion loss varies with temperature variation is greater (TDL)
(4) multi-demultiplexer (e.g., 1 × 16,1 × 32) volume is relatively large, the reliability will be reduced, the installation space is restricted.

PLC Splitter

Planar waveguide technology is the optical waveguide branching device with a semiconductor production process. The branching function is completed on the chip. On one chip to achieve up to 1X32 splitter, then, at both ends of the chip package input terminal and an output terminal respectively coupled multi-
Channel optical fiber array.

Advantages
(1) The loss of transmission is not sensitive to the wavelength of light, to meet the transmission needs of different wavelengths.
(2) spectroscopic uniform signal can be uniformly allocated to the user.
(3) compact structure, small size, can be installed directly in the existing junction box, no special design leave a lot of space for installation.
(4) only a single device shunt channel can achieve much more than 32 channels. (5) The multi-channel, low cost, stars ones more and more obvious cost advantages.

Disadvantages
(1) Device complex production process, high technical threshold, the chip is several foreign companies to monopolize domestic bulk package production companies only Borch rarely several.
(2) relative to the higher cost of Fused Splitter more at a disadvantage, especially in the low channel splitter.

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Several Variable Optical Attenuator Introduction

Variable optical attenuator (VOA) has a wide range of applications in optical communication, and its main function is to reduce or control the optical signal.

The basic characteristics of fiber optic network should be Variable, especially with the application of DWDM transmission systems and EDFA in optical communication, it must be carried out in a plurality of optical signal on the transmission channel gain flattening or equalization, channel power in the optical receiver. The side to be dynamic saturation control, optical networks also need to control for other signals, making the VOA become indispensable key components. In addition, VOA also can be combined with other optical communication components and this pushed itself to the characteristics of the high-level module.

In recent years, there appeared many technologies on manufacture of variable optical attenuator, including mechanical VOA, magneto-optical VOA, LCD VOA, MEMS VOA, thermo-optic VOA and acousto-optic VOA.

Mechanical VOA
The principle is to use a stepper motor drag neutral gradient filter, its output optical power at a predetermined attenuation rule change when the different positions of the light beam passes through the filter, so as to achieve the purpose of adjusting the amount of attenuation. There is also a mechanical polarized optical attenuator. Its basic principle is that the light beam emitted from the ingress port reflected by the reflection sheet to the port, the the reflector coupling efficiency between the two ports by the inclination angle of the reflection sheet to the control, enabling adjustment of the light attenuation. The inclination of the reflection sheet from a variety of different mechanisms to control. Mechanical type optical attenuator is more traditional solutions, so far, the VOA application in the system most used mechanical method to achieve attenuation. The type of optical attenuator with mature technology, optical properties, low insertion loss, polarization dependent loss, without temperature control, etc.; disadvantage is that the larger, more complex structure components, the response rate is not high, it is difficult to automate the production is not conducive to integration.

Magneto-optical VOA
Magneto-optical VOA is the use of some of the substances in the magnetic field is shown by the changes in optical properties, such as magnetic rotation effect (Faraday effect) can also be achieved attenuation of the light energy, so as to achieve the purpose of adjusting the optical signal. The magneto-optical effect of the material and in combination with other techniques, you can create a high performance, small size, high response and the structure is relatively simple optical attenuator. This is LLL device using discrete technology to produce the optical attenuator to be a further development of the field.

LCD VOA
Utilizing a liquid crystal refractive index anisotropy in the liquid crystal VOA shows birefringence. When an external electric field is applied, the orientation of the liquid crystal molecules are rearranged, will result in the change in its transmission characteristics. The type of attenuation can be achieved by light intensity change of the type of voltage control is applied to the two electrodes in the liquid crystal. The liquid crystal optical attenuator VOA can achieve the miniaturization and high response. But at the same time the liquid crystal material into a larger loss, the production process is relatively more complex, in particular, is influenced by environmental factors, its advantage is a low cost, there are commercial batch.

MEMS VOA
MEMS is the technology of the new applications in this area, After several years of development, the MEMS chip production process has become more mature, a strong impetus to the application of the MEMS optical attenuator. Optical network applications, MEMS technology-based products also have the obvious advantage on price and performance. MEMS VOA has been very mature, and mass production and large-scale application. Because of yield problems, in terms of price also facing challenges In addition, micro-electro-mechanical components, reliability is sometimes less than ideal. The early MEMS VOA using laser welding, into a larger device, and the production efficiency is low, and high assembly costs. Currently, the market also introduced a MEMS VOA plastic technology, a good solution to this problem.

Thermo-optic VOA
Thermo-optic VOA mainly using some of the material changes in the optical properties of temperature field characteristics, such as temperature changes caused by the thermo-optical refractive index change. According to the structure of the different, can be divided into two categories, leak-and open-light type VOA. Thermo-optic VOA due to heating, cooling device is relatively complex, a function of the mathematical relationship between the temperature field photoconductive medium refractive index is complex and difficult to accurately quantify and control, especially the longer response time hindered its application in modern optical communication .

Acousto-optic VOA
The basic principle is to use the cyclical strain, resulting in a periodic variation of the refractive index, equal to create a phase grating for the acousto-optical crystal in the generated under the action of ultrasonic waves, and so can be modulated using the raster beam. Some companies have already claimed to have developed the acousto-optical crystal variable attenuator (called the AVOA). It is understood that the acquisition of the acousto-optic crystal material is no problem, but at this stage of the total cost is high, about 4-5.

Conclusion:

Variable optical attenuator is one of important optical devices in the optical communication system. Over the years, it has been stuck at a mechanical level. Because its size is not conducive to integration, it is generally only suitable for single-channel attenuation. With the development of DWDM system, as well as market the flexibility to upgrade reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) potentially huge demand, there need more channels and small size variable optical attenuator array, in particular the integrated VOA product. Traditional mechanical methods can not solve these problems. With the development of fiber optic network, VOAs development trends are: low cost, highly integrated, fast response time as well as integration of hybrid with other optical communication devices.

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About Optical Transponder

The current invention relates generally to computer-based industrial control systems, such as microprocessor control of digital and analog functionality, and much more particularly relates to methods and apparatus for calibrating, monitoring, andcontrolling an optical transponder.

Methods and apparatus are supplied in accordance with the present invention in which a control mechanism, such as for instance, a microcontroller, provides an interface between an optical transponder and an external control system, such that monitoring and controlling from the optical aspects of the optical transponder are accomplished in an efficient and cost-effective manner. In some embodiments from the present invention, methods and apparatus provide for testing and calibration of the optical transponder without removing any part of a protective housing within which the internal components of the optical transponder are disposed.

With advances in integrated circuit, microprocessor, fiber optic networking and communication technologies, progressively more devices, in particular, digital computing devices, are being networked together. Such products are often first coupled to alocal area network, for example an Ethernet-based office/home network. In turn, the neighborhood area networks are interconnected together through wide area networks, for example Synchronous Optical Networks (SONET), Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks, FrameRelays, and so on. Of particular importance is the TCP/IP based global inter-network, the web. The rapid growth of the web has fueled a convergence of information communication (datacom) and telecommunication (telecom) protocols and requirements. It is increasingly important that data traffic be carried efficiently across local, regional and wide area networks.

As a result of this trend of increased connectivity, progressively more applications that are network dependent are being deployed. Types of these network dependent applications include, but aren’t restricted to, the internet, email,Internet-based telephony, and various kinds of e-commerce and enterprise applications. The success of many content/service providers as well as commerce sites depends on high-speed delivery of a big volume of data across wide areas. In turn, thistrend results in an increased interest in high-speed data trafficking equipment, for example high-speed optical-electrical routers or switches and the like. In other words, like a widening variety of new and traditional services converge across sharedinter-networking transport structures, there is a critical demand for Internet to simultaneously deliver higher bandwidths, more reliable service, and greater deployment flexibility.

The widespread deployment of high-speed networking and communications equipment has produced a large demand for various networking and communications components and subsystems. Included among these are modules often referred to as optical transponders.

Optical transponders typically include components for electrical signal processing, and components for transmission and reception of optical signals. Conventional optical transponders typically receive electrical signals in parallel,serialize the information represented by these signals, convert the serialized data into a light-based signal and couple that signal to an outbound optical fiber. Similarly, conventional optical transponders, typically receive a serialized light-based datastream, convert that data stream for an electrical equivalent, de-serialize that data, and provide the de-serialized electrical data, i.e., data inside a parallel format, to some plurality of output terminals. Conventional optical transponders typically includea case, or housing, within which the electrical and optical components are housed. Such a case provides physical protection for the components, as well as provides thermal conductivity so that heat might be dissipated from the components disposed within thecase.

Optical transponders are often utilized in some applications the link length is much more than what the power budget defines or there isn’t a definite type of sight backward and forward end nodes. OEO means optical-to-electrical-to-optical. It is a kind of transponders. OEO converts optical signal to electrical signal and then to optical signal again. It enables for add-drop functionality, in addition to simple optical reply or transponder. FiberStore supply 1G, 2G and 4G OEO, 125M~4.25G OEO Converter, 125M~1.25G OEO Converter, such as SFP to SFP Optical-Electrical-Optical type media converter/repeater to satisfy your different requirement. 10G OEO is also available.

Construct smarter fiber optic networks with ROADM technology

As IPTV, triple play, VoIP and other new telecommunications services rise, people find that IP-bearing agreement business has rapidly spread in most regions of telecommunications and fiber optic networks.

IP-based packet-based carrier network transformation has been become an irreversible trend. In this trend, carriers are shifting the entire network infrastructure, business anticipates the integration of optical layer integration as a foundation bearing layer, making it even more right for carrying IP/MPLS and Carrier Ethernet services group transmission network. The brand new telecom services in contrast to traditional telecom services, with increased dynamic and unpredictable, therefore have to transfer the bearer network to provide greater flexibility.

Because the same time, long-distance dense WDM mature, making the network a real business of building from the bandwidth bottleneck within the transfer to the bandwidth management, within the core network nodes, often need to deal with dozens or perhaps hundreds of wavelengths, but long-distance transmission capability and much more nodes must have more capacity to the upper minimizing wavelength. Like a basis for carrying the network inside a more competitive market environment, it needs to provide faster service and various amounts of network protection and recovery capabilities. Therefore, as the traditional physical layer of optical layer network, we must adjust to a brand new generation of packet-based bearer networks, operational, bandwidth, large granular, and dynamic networking needs.

DWDM is the most common optical layer networking technology. Through multiplexing/demultiplexing, it can achieve tens or perhaps countless wave wave transmission capacity. However in the current WDM systems, its nature is still a point-line system, most of the optical layer network only through the terminal station (TM) to achieve the optical line system construction. Later, Optical add-drop multiplexer (OADM) gradually taken point to point network to the ring from the evolution. However, due to the limited OADM functions, usually merely a fixed number of levels and wavelengths of sunshine channel, and never really flexible optical layer networking. Thus, in this way, early WDM systems do not achieve true optical layer networking, IP-based networks can not meet the business requirements and packet-based until the emergence of the situation was able to enhance the ROADM. To meet up with the needs of IP networks, it provides a new idea that gradually adopt a reconfigurable optical add drop multiplexer plug (ROADM), represented by optical layer reconfiguration technology, and in line with the construction of the bearer network.

ROADM Technical Introduction is really a similar SDHADM optical layer network element, which can be completed in one node down and up road of sunshine channels (Add/Drop), and penetrating between your optical channel wavelength-level cross-scheduling. It can be remotely controlled by software, network aspect in achieving the lower and upper road wavelength ROADM sub-system configuration and adjustment. Currently, ROADM subsystem, there are three common techniques: planar lightwave circuit (PLC), wavelength blocker (WB), wavelength selection switch (WSS).

PLC is among low-cost ROADM solution. The advantage is that multiplexer and demultiplexer technology is mature and reliable, low insertion loss within the node, down way more when costs are lower wavelength, simple to upgrade to the OXC; drawback is poor modular structure, the initial configuration and high cost, large capacity the longevity of cross matrix must be improved.

Physical factors as transmission, all-optical transmission distance is susceptible to certain restrictions, within the backbone network applications, the company flow and also the flow can not be any change, still need to accurately design and planning, increasing the complexity of network planning. Deutsche Telekom is also clear the physical limitations affecting ROADM transport network of important reasons.

Based on existing ROADM these shortcomings, the proposed to increase the cross-field power. So had a ROADM OTN equipment form. Typical applications are now, in excess of 10G (with 10G) business, the node all-optical way through or up and down, for GE/2.5G business, its first node towards the electric field under the road crossing panels, according to further 2.5G particles and electric field-drop multiplexing. This drop multiplexing mode somewhat similar to the ADM, just the first-class all-optical processing. Equipment manufacturers have previously released products, and in certain applications inside the metropolitan area.

Optical WDM in Fiber Optic Network

Optical WDM networks are networks that deploy optical wdm fiber links where each fiber link carries multiple wavelength channels.

An exciting Optical Network (AON) is definitely an optical wdm network which supplies end-to-end optical paths by using all optical nodes that allow optical signal in which to stay optical domain without conversion to electrical signal. AONs are often optical circuit-switched networks where circuits are switched by intermediate nodes in the granularity of the wavelength channel. Hence a circuit-switched AON can also be called a wavelength routing network where optical circuits are equal to wavelength channels.

A wavelength routing network includes optical cross-connect (OXC) and optical add-drop multiplexer (OADM) interconnected by WDM fibers. Transmission of information over this optical network is performed using optical circuit-switching connections, referred to as lightpaths. An OXC is definitely an N * N optical switch with N input fibers and N output fibers with every fiber carries wavelengths. The OXC can optically switch all the incoming wavelengths of its input fibers to the outgoing wavelengths of its output fibers. An OADM can terminate the signals on a quantity of wavelengths and inserts new signals in to these wavelengths. The rest of the wavelengths pass through the OADM transparently.

For a user to deliver data to some destination user, a circuit-switching connection is made by using a wavelength on each hop along the connection path. This unidirectional optical path is known as lightpath and also the node in between each hop is either an OXC or an OADM. These units are utilized within the 100G DWDM networks. A separate lightpath has to be established using different fibers to setup transmission within the opposite direction. To fulfill the wavelength continuity constraint, the same wavelength can be used on every hop along the lightpath. If a lightpath is blocked since the required wavelength is unavailable, a converter in an OXC can transform the optical signal transmitted in one wavelength to another wavelength.

Because the bandwidth of a wavelength is usually much larger than that requires by a single client, traffic glooming is used to allow the bandwidth of the lightpath to be shared by many people clients. The bandwidth of the lightpath is split into subrate units; clients can request one or more subrate units to carry traffic streams at lower rates. For instance, information is transmitted over an optical network using SONET (Synchronous Optical Network) framing with a transmission rate of OC-48 (2.488 Gbps). A lightpath is established from OXC1 to OXC3 through OXC2 using wavelength w, the subrate unit available on this lightpath is OC-3 (155 Mbps). A user on OXC1 can request any integer number of OC-3 subrate units up to a total of 16 to transmit data to another user on OXC3. A network operator can use traffic-groomed lightpaths to provide subrate transport services to the users with the addition of an online network towards the fiber optic network.

Information on a lightpath is typically transmitted using SONET framing. In the future, the data transmitted over optical network uses the brand new ITU-T G.709 standard, referred to as digital wrapper. In ITU-T, an optical network is referred to as the optical transport network (OTN). Listed here are some of the options that come with G.709 standard: 1) The conventional permits transmission of various kinds of traffic: IP packets and gigabit Ethernet frames using Generic Framing Procedure (GFP), ATM cells and SONET/SDH synchronous data. 2) It supports three bit rate granularities: 2.488 Gbps, 9.95 Gbps and 39.81 Gbps. 3) It offers capabilities to monitor an association on an end-to-end basis over several carriers, in addition to over a single carrier. 4) G.709 uses Forward Error Correction (FEC) to detect and correct bit errors brought on by physical impairments in the transmission links.

Lightpath may either be static or dynamic. Static lightpaths are in place using network management procedures and may remain up for a long time. Virtual Private Networks (VPN) could be set up using static lightpaths. Dynamic lightpaths are established instantly using signaling protocols, such as GMPLS (Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching) and UNI (User Network Interface) proposed by OIF (Optical Internetworking Forum). GMPLS is definitely an extension of MPLS and is built to apply MPLS label switching techniques to Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) networks and wavelength routing networks, in addition to packet switching networks. The OIF UNI specifies signaling procedures for clients to automatically create, delete and query an association over wavelength routing network. The UNI signaling is implemented by extending the label distribution protocols, LDP and RSVP-TE.

Basic Common Sense Resolution of Fiber Optic Transceivers

Fiber optic transceiver is an indispensable network data transmission equipment. What is fiber optic transceiver? What is the structure of fiber optic transceivers? What is the role of fiber optic transceivers in the data dissemination process?

Fiber optic transceiver includes three basic functional modules: optical media converter chip, the optical signal interface (optical transceiver module) and the electrical signal interface (RJ45), with network management functions include network management information processing unit.

Fiber optic transceiver is a short distance twisted pair electrical signals and optical signals over long distances to swap the Ethernet transmission media conversion unit, in many places, also known as Fiber Converter. Products in generic applications can not be covered in the Ethernet cable, you must use the fiber to extend the transmission distance of the actual network environment, and is usually located in the broadband metropolitan area network access layer applications; in helping the fiber last mile connections to the metro also played a huge role in the network and the outer layer of the network.

Used directly in some of the larger companies, network construction fiber-optic backbone network established for the transmission medium, the internal LAN transmission medium is usually copper. How to implement LAN and connected to the fiber optic backbone? This requires different ports, different linear, convert between different fiber and ensure the quality of the link. The emergence of fiber optic transceivers, conversion between twisted pair electrical signals and optical signals to ensure the smooth transmission of data packets between two networks at the same time it will network transmission distance limit extended to more than 100 kilometers from the copper wire 100 meters ( single-mode fiber).

What are the basic features of fiber optic transceiver:

1. It is completely transparent to the network protocol.

2. Ultra low-latency data transmission.

3. It supports a wide operating temperature range.

4. Using a dedicated ASIC chip data wire-speed forwarding. The programmable ASIC will focus on the multiple functions onto a single chip, has the advantages of simple design, high reliability, low power consumption, enabling the machine to get higher performance and lower cost.

5. Network management equipment to provide network diagnostics, upgrades, status reports, exception reports and control functions, provide a complete operation log and alarm log.

6. Rack equipment can provide hot-swap function, ease of maintenance and uninterrupted upgrade.

7. Support a full range of transmission distance (from 0 to 120 km).

8. Equipment 1 +1 power supply design, support for ultra-wide supply voltage, power protection and automatic switching.

Fiber transceiver classification:

There are many types of fiber optic transceivers. In WDM system, for example, there are CWDM and DWDM transceivers including CWDM SFP, DWDM SFP, CWDM SFP+, DWDM SFP+, CWDM GBIC, CWDM XFP, DWDM XFP, CWDM X2, DWDM X2, CWDM XENPAK, and DWDM XENPAK.

FiberStore provides a full range of optical transceivers, such as SFP+ (SFP Plus) transceiver, X2 transceiver, XENPAK transceiver, XFP transceiver, SFP (Mini GBIC) transceiver, GBIC transceiver, CWDM/DWDM transceiver, and PON transceiver. All our fiber transceivers are 100% compatible with major brands like Cisco, HP, Juniper, Nortel, Force10, D-link, 3Com. They are backed by a lifetime warranty, and you can buy with confidence. We also can customize optical transceivers to fit your specific requirements.