The use of fiber optic systems is expanding at a amazing rate. Only in the past Ten years, fiber optic communications systems have replaced just about all coaxial and twisted pair cables particularly in network backbones. This is also true in almost any long distance communication links.

This can be explained simply. Optical fiber cable is easier to set up, lighter than traditional copper cable, and much smaller than its electronic counterpart. The most crucial factor is it has much more bandwidth. Because fiber optic cables are lighter, they are simpler to survive existing ducts and cable raceways. There are other big benefits of fiber optic cables including their immunity to electromagnetic interference, longer repeater distances, lower power requirements, and better flexibility.

All the above pros make fiber optic cables very attractive and most important of all, very economical. The unstoppable trend for fiber optic applications would be the change from the long haul (long distance) to our desk, our house, and our office. The terms include FTTC ( fiber towards the curb), FTTD (fiber towards the desk), FTTH (fiber towards the home) and FTTB( fiber to the building). Fiber optic cables enable our imagine integrating all our phone, Internet and TV services. Fiber’s wide bandwidth makes this possible. It offers more than enough ability to meet all our voice, data and video requirements.

The transformation from copper to fiber is greatly accelerated through the invention of optical fiber amplifier. Optical fiber amplifiers enable optical signal transmission over very long distances without the expensive procedure for conversion to electronic signals, electronic amplification and the conversion to optical signal again as in traditional regenerators.

Today most of the network traffic switching continue to be done by electronic switches such as those from Cisco. But tremendous interest and effort of utilizing all-optical devices for those network switching are accumulating in the industry. The most important sign of all-optical switching lies in its almost unlimited transmission capacity. However, it is still within the prototype stage for controlling light with light, so optical swith circuits continue to be controlled by electronic circuits now. The switching matrix may be optical circuits but the control are still done by electronic circuits.

Optical fiber is nearly the perfect medium for signal transmission available today and in the foreseeable future. The excellent sign of optical fiber is its immunity to electromagnetic interference. Optical circuits can be crossed inside a common space without cross interference among them. But you will find problems which are impeding the rate of all-optical system development. The most obvious and basic reason may be the compatibility requirements with legacy fiber optic systems.

Another huge advantage of optical fiber is based on the opportunity to multiplex its capacity via WDM (wavelength division multiplexer). WDM modulates each of several data streams right into a different part of the light spectrum. WDM is the optical equivalent of FDM (frequency division multiplexer). The use of WDM can increase the capacity of merely one channel fiber optic communication system by countless times.

In additional to optical communication systems, fiber optic technology is also widely used in medicine, illumination, sensing, endoscopy, industry control and more.