PHYSICS

INVESTIGATORY
PROJECT
CLASS 12: 2019-20

BY –UDDALAK CHATTOPADHYAY
CLASS:12 D
ADMISSION NO:2006/0045
OPTICAL FIBRE
AND ITS
APPLICATIONS
INDEX
1. CERTIFICATE
2. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
3. AIM OF THE PROJECT
4. MATERIALS REQUIRED FOR DEMO
5. IMPORTANT TERMS
6. OPTICAL FIBRE CABLE (OFC)
7. PRINCIPLE AND WORKING OF OFC
8. MECHANISM OF ATTENUATION OF OFC
9. APPLICATIONS OF OFC
10. BIBLIOGRAPHY
CERTIFICATE

This is hereby to certify that the original and genuine

investigation work has been carried out to investigate about
the subject matter and the related data collection has been
completed solely, sincerely and satisfactorily in the subject
of Physics by Uddalak Chattopadhyay of Class 12-D ,
Delhi Public School ,Haridwar regarding his project titled “
Optical Fibre and Its Applications” , under the guidance of
Mr. Dharmendra Goswami in the session 2019-20.

Roll.No: 4

Teacher’s signature :
Examiner’s signature :
Student’s signature :

Date of Submission :
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I feel extremely delighted and satisfied on the completion of

my investigatory project but it wasn’t a single effort. First
of all, I would like to thank my parents for helping me
financially and encouraging me to continue this project.
Then, I would like to thank my Physics teacher and class
teacher Mr. Dharmendra Goswami who gave me the golden
opportunity to do this wonderful and exciting project and
also for teaching me the basics of this project. I would also Commented [H1]:

like to thank my special e-friends Google and YouTube who

helped me a lot in finalizing this project within a limited
time frame.
I would like to express sincere thanks and gratitude to all
the people mentioned above for enabling me to undertake
such a thrilling and knowledge-enhancing project.

Uddalak Chattopadhyay
AIM OF THE PROJECT

To study the Optical Fibre Cable (OFC), its

Principle and its Applications through a
demonstration experiment.
MATERIALS REQUIRED
FOR DEMO

The following materials will be required to demonstrate the

working principle of Optical Fibre Cable:
1. LASER Light (Green)
2. Acrylic Rod(s)
3. Black Board or Cardboard Base
4. Adhesives or Holders
5. Optical Fibre Cable(optional)
#Alternative materials:
6. Water
7. Propene Glycol
8. Plastic bottle
9. A stopper
10. Glass Test Tubes
IMPORTANT TERMS
 Optical Fibre: An optical fibre (or fibre) is a glass or
plastic fibre that carries light along its length.
Optical fibres are widely used in fibre- optic
communications, which permits transmission over longer
distances and at higher bandwidths (data rates) than other
forms of communications.
 Refraction: Refraction is the change in direction of a
wave due to a change in its speed. This is most commonly
observed when a wave passes from one medium to another.
 Reflection: Reflection is the change in direction of a
wave front at an interface between two different media so
that the wave front returns into the medium from which it
originated.
 Scattering: Scattering is a general physical process
where some forms of radiation, such as light, sound, or
moving particles, are forced to deviate from a straight
trajectory by one or more localized non-uniformities in the
medium through which they pass.
 Attenuation: is the gradual loss in intensity of any
kind of flux through a medium. For instance, sunlight is
attenuated by dark glasses, and X-rays are attenuated by
lead.
OPTICAL FIBRE CABLE
(OFC)
An optical fibre (or fibre) is a glass or plastic
fibre that carries light along its length. Fibres are
used instead of metal wires because signals travel
along them with less loss, and they are also
immune to electromagnetic interference. They are
wrapped in bundles so they can be used to carry
images, thus allowing viewing in tight spaces.
Light is kept in the core of the optical fibre by
total internal reflection. This causes the fibre to
act as a waveguide. Fibres which support many
propagation paths or transverse modes are called
multi-mode fibres (MMF), while those which can
only support a single mode are called single-
mode fibres (SMF). MMF generally have a
larger core diameter, and are used for short-
distance communication links and for
applications where high power must be
transmitted. SMF are used for most
communication links longer than 550 meters
(1,800 ft.)
PRINCIPLE AND WORKING
OF OFC
 Refractive Index
The Refractive Index is a way of measuring the
speed of light in a material. Light travels fastest
in a vacuum, such as outer space. The actual
speed of light in a vacuum is about 300 million
meters per second. Refractive Index is calculated
by dividing the speed of light in a vacuum by
the speed of light in some other medium. Its value
is 1 for a vacuum and/or air. The typical value
for the cladding of an optical fibre is 1.46. The
core value is typically 1.48. The larger the value,
the slower light travels in that medium. From
this information, a signal using optical fibre for
communication will travel at around 200
million meters per second. Or to put it another
way, to travel 1000 Kilometres in fibre, the
signal will take 5 milliseconds to propagate.
Thus a phone call carried by fibre between
Sydney and New York, a 12000 kilometre
distance, means that there is an absolute
minimum delay of 60 milliseconds (or around
1/16th of a second) between when one caller
speaks to when the other hears. (Of course the
fibre in this case will probably travel a longer
route, and there will be additional delays due to
communication equipment switching and the
process of encoding and decoding the voice onto
the fibre).

 Total Internal Reflection

When light travelling in a dense medium hits a
boundary at a steep angle (larger than the
"critical angle" for the boundary), the light will be
completely reflected. This effect is used in optical
fibres to confine light in the core. Light travels
along the fibre bouncing back and forth off of the
boundary. Because the light must strike the
boundary with an angle greater than the critical
angle, only light that enters the fibre within a
certain range of angles can travel down the fibre
without leaking out. This range of angles is
called the acceptance cone of the fibre. The size of
this acceptance cone is a function of the refractive
index difference between the fibre’s core and
cladding.
In simpler terms, there is a maximum angle from
the fibre axis at which light may enter the fibre so
that it will propagate, or travel, in the core of the
fibre. The sine of this maximum angle is the
numerical aperture (NA) of the fibre. Fibre with a
larger NA requires less precision to splice and
work with than fibre with a smaller NA. Single-
Mode fibre has a small NA as compared to Multi-
Mode Fibre.

A Green LASER light passing through an Acrylic rod shows the phenomenon of TIR
at a certain angle

# Single-Mode Fibre:
The structure of a typical single-mode fibre.
1. Core: 8 µm diameter
2. Cladding: 125 µm dia.
3. Buffer: 250 µm dia.
4. Jacket: 400 µm dia.
# Multi-Mode Fibre:

The propagation of light through a multi-mode optical fibre.

MECHANISMS OF
ATTENUATION OF OFC
Attenuation in fibre optics, also known as
transmission loss, is the reduction in intensity
of the light beam (or signal) with respect to
distance travelled through a transmission
medium. Attenuation coefficients in fibre optics
usually use units of dB/km through the medium
due to the relatively high quality of transparency
of modern optical transmission media.
Research has shown that attenuation in optical
fibre is caused primarily by both scattering and
absorption.
1. Light catter ng:
The propagation of light through the core of an
optical fibre is based on total internal reflection of
the light wave. Rough and irregular surfaces,
even at the molecular level, can cause light rays to
be reflected in random directions. This is called
diffuse reflection or scattering, and it is
typically characterized by wide variety of
reflection angles.
The scattering of light depends on the wavelength
of the light being scattered. Thus, limits to spatial
scales of visibility arise, depending on the
frequency of the incident light-wave and the
physical dimension (or spatial scale) of the
scattering centre, which is typically in the form
of some specific micro-structural feature.
APPLICATIONS OF OFC
Fibre optic cables find many uses in a wide variety of
industries and applications. Some uses of fibre optic
cables include:
· Medical:
Used as light guides, imaging tools and also as lasers for
surgeries
· Defence/Government:
Used as hydrophones for seismic waves and SONAR , as
wiring in aircraft, submarines and other vehicles and
also for field networking
· Data Storage:
Used for data transmission
· Telecommunications:
Fibre is laid and used for transmitting and receiving
purposes
· Networking:
Used to connect users and servers in a variety of network
settings and help increase the speed and accuracy of data
transmission
· Industrial/Commercial:
Used for imaging in hard to reach areas, as wiring where
EMI is an issue, as sensory devices to make temperature,
pressure and other measurements, and as wiring in
automobiles and in industrial settings
· Broadcast/CATV:
Broadcast/cable companies are using fibre optic cables for
wiring CATV, HDTV, internet, video on-demand and
other applications
BIBLIOGRAPHY
· www.google.com
· www.enwikipedia.org
· https://sites.google.com/site/csapgroupc/home/applicat
ions-of-optical-fibre
· www.google.com/images
· https://computer.howstuffworks.com/fiber-optic1.htm
· https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MwMkBET_5I