In recent years there has been a meteoric rise in the use of plastic fiber optic cables, e.g. for data transmission on short to medium-length transmission paths. The reason for this is that plastic fiber optic cables can be connected to the relevant transmission components at low cost and using simple tools. This book offers an introduction to the physical principles of the new technology and describes the materials and manufacturing process of plastic fibers as well as the construction of plastic fiber optic cables. It describes various types of cable, as well as transmitting and receiving components in the transmission path and provides useful tips on the processing and installation of plastic fiber optic cable. Reference is also made to important national and international standards. This book is intended for anyone involved in the development, planning or installation of plastic fiber optic cable systems. The fundamental structure of the book also makes it suitable for university lecturers and students.

Polymer Optical Fibres: Fibre Types, Materials, Fabrication, Characterization, and Applications explores polymer optical fibers, specifically their materials, fabrication, characterization, measurement techniques, and applications. Optical effects, including light propagation, degrading effects of attenuation, scattering, and dispersion, are explained. Other important parameters like mechanical strength, operating temperatures, and processability are also described. Polymer optical fibers (POF) have a number of advantages over glass fibers, such as low cost, flexibility, low weight, electromagnetic immunity, good bandwidth, simple installation, and mechanical stability. - Provides systematic and comprehensive coverage of materials, fabrication, properties, measurement techniques, and applications of POF - Focuses on industry needs in communication, illumination and sensors, the automotive industry, and medical and biotechnology - Features input from leading experts in POF technology, with experience spanning optoelectronics, polymer, and textiles - Explains optical effects, including light propagation, degrading effects of attenuation, scattering, and dispersion

Fibre Optics has gained prominence in: telecommunications, data transmission and distribution, cable television networks, sensing and control, light probing and instrumentation. The 1990's shows an increased expansion of optical fibre networks which respond to the rapid growth on a world scale of long distance trunk lines combined with a family of emerging optical based services in which fibre-to-the-home will have the greatest impact. There is already evidence that optical communications are moving toward higher bit-rates, wavelength transparency and irrelevance of signal formats. The rate of change in fibre optics and the emergence of new services will be a mere consequence of economics. The actual increasing of cost and the demand for high-date-rates or large bandwidth per transmission channels, and the lack of available space in the congested conduits in urban areas, strongly favour the technological change to fibre optics. The recognised advantages of fibre optic technologies and the unchallenged potential to respond to future needs requires the inclusion of fibre optics networking into new installations. Concomitantly, current progress in the field of optical fibres (optical fibre amplifiers, optical fibre switching, WDM, fibre gratings, etc.) unfold major technical advances and greater flexibility in the designs and engineering of networks, optical fibre components and instrumentation. The explosion of growth in fibre sensors, fibre probes and the myriad of fibre based components shows that we are only using a fraction of optical fibre potential.