Here is all you need to know about Single Mode and Multimode optical fibers

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It is true that nothing in this whole world gives us more power and confidence than the ability to communicate. All the advancement of the mankind is achieved with effective communication. Fiber optics is a very thin strand of purified glass which carries information from the source to the receiver. Light is used as a medium to transmit signals from one point to another.

Here are the three parts of a fiber optical system-

• A transmitter which generates the light signal
• An optical cable fiber which carries the light
• A receiver which accepts the light signal that was transmitted

Each optical fiber consist of the following-

• The core or center of the fiber which carries light
• The cladding reflects light signals back to the core
• The outside jacket or buffer coating protects the optical fiber from any moisture, corrosion and external damage

There are two types of fiber optical cables-

• Glass fibers
• Plastic fibers

There are two types of optical fiber cables given below-

• Single Mode fiber
• Multimode fiber

Single Mode fiber- It has smaller diameters and hence it is used for long distance transmission. The single mode fiber also has a lot higher bandwidth than multimode fiber. Laser light is used for the transmission of information from the transmitter to the receiver. It is usually much more expensive than multimode fiber because it requires precise calculations to produce laser light in a smaller opening. It has much smaller core than the multimode optical fiber. The single mode fiber gives a higher transmission rate and covers up to 50 times more distance than the multimode fiber. It is basically used in the applications which have longer bandwidth like Telcos, CATV companies, universities, and colleges.

Multimode Fiber- It has much larger diameters and hence used for shorter distance communications. The larger diameter allows more light pulses to be sent through the cable at one time which actually makes more data transmission possible. It also means that it causes more data loss, reduction or interference and so on. LED lights are used for transmission of signals from one point to another. The application of the multimode fiber is for shorter distances i.e. it is used in data/audio applications in LANs. RF broadband signals used by cable companies cannot be transmitted using the multimode fiber.

Inside the multimode fiber-

• Step-index Multimode fiber
• Graded index Multimode fiber

The install of any of the above optical fiber depends on the purpose of the use. The multimode fiber allows transmission up to 10 miles while single mode fibers are used for transmission which can take place for more than 10 miles. Each of the optical fiber has its own advantages and disadvantages. It all depends on the purpose of your use which fiber you should use. In today’s time, there are many applications of optical fiber communications which cannot be neglected.