ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the propagation characteristics of optical fibres with special applications to optical communication systems and presents some of their noncommunication applications, such as in sensing. At the heart of an optical communication system is the optical fibre, which acts as the transmission channel carrying the light beam loaded with information. The light beam gets guided through the optical fibre due to the phenomenon of total internal reflection. The advent of lasers in 1960 immediately triggered a great number of investigations aimed at examining the possibility of building optical analogues of conventional communication systems. The very first such modern optical communication experiments involved laser beam transmission through the atmosphere. When a light pulse propagates through an optical fibre, it suffers from attenuation due to various mechanisms; additionally, the pulse broadens in time, leading to pulse dispersion.