CONNECTORS / TERMINATIONS WITH FIBER GLOSSARY (6)

Loss: Attenuation of optical signal, normally measured in decibels. The amount of a signal’s power, expressed in dB, that is lost in connectors, splices, or fiber defects.

Modal Dispersion: Dispersion arising from the differences in the times the different modes take to travel through multimode fiber.

Mode: An Electromagnetic field distribution that satisfied theoretical requirements for propagation in a waveguide or oscillation in a cavity (e.g., a laser). Light has modes in a fiber or laser. A single electromagnetic wave traveling in a fiber.

Multimode (Multi Mode): Transmits or emits multiple modes of light. An optical waveguide with a much larger core (50μm+) than the singlemode waveguide core (2μm to 9μm) and which permits approximately 1,000 modes to propagate through the core compared to only one mode through a singlemode fiber.

Multimode Dispersion: Dispersion resulting from the different transit lengths of different propagating modes in a multimode optical fiber. Also called modal dispersion.

October 24, 2011

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