Fibers

Compared with metallic conductors, optical fibres allow greater bandwidth, are immune to electromagnetic interference, lighter and smaller and have a lower power loss.

Main applications are:

• Communications: data transmission for tele/datacom, industrial, aerospace, and military communications systems.
• Sensing by delivering light from a remote source to a detector to obtain pressure, temperature, or spectral information for medical and industrial applications. Also, as a transducer to measure strain and pressure for structural health monitoring.
• Specialty optical fibres, e.g., multi-core fibres and photonic crystal fibres. These provide optimal flexibility, environmental & temperature resistance, and non-traditional operating wavelengths for high-power laser systems, medical equipment, structural health monitoring, military, and automotive sectors.