Fiber Optic Equipments | Test and Measurement World

This page covers Fiber Optic equipments for test and measurement. These are used for fiber optic measurements. The common Fiber Optic equipments include optical spectrum analyzer, TDR (Time Domain Reflectometer), wavelength meter, densitometer, Spectrophotometer, optical thickness guage, Lux meter etc.

Introduction:
As we know fiber optic communication system is widely used throughout the world due to its large bandwidth to deliver high speed internet connection. The fiber optic signal is immune from electromagnetic interference. Fiber optic signal can travel to long distances without the need of amplification until it is essential.

Fiber optic system consists of encoder, light source transmitter, optical cable, light detector, amplifier, shaper, decoder, connectors and so on. Following are the optical measurements carried out by fiber optic equipments. LED or visible laser is used as source.

Fiber optic measurements

Following are the optical tests usually carried out by fiber optic equipments.

Numerical Aperture (NA): It is measured for multi mode fiber. It is related to acceptance angle of the fiber. NA is the measure of light collecting ability of the optical fiber. Larger the magnitude of NA, greater the amount of light accepted by the fiber from the external source.

Attenuation: The path loss through the cable depends on length of the optic fiber. There are two components in this optical loss e.g. intrinsic loss in the fiber, loss to environment through which fiber is laid.

Dispersion: This parameter has direct impact on maximum data rate fiber optic system can handle. One can calculate dispersion by knowing input pulse width and output pulse width using oscilloscope.

Cut off wavelength: Output of the fiber optic system is plotted using wavelength on x-axis and power on y-axis.

Data quality: Eye pattern test is done to check for data quality.

Optical Return loss: It is the amount of transmitted light which is reflected back to the source. It is measured in dB. It is the difference between input power and reflected power.

Fiber optic equipments

Following are the most common fiber optic equipments used for various fiber optic tests.

Optical spectrum analyzer: It is an instrument which is designed to measure power over specified range of wavelength. The companies such as Yokogawa, Keysight, Anritsu manufactures optical spectrum analyzers.

TDR (Time Domain Reflectometer): It is an optoelectronic equipment which is used to characterize optical fiber. It is also used to locate faults in cables such as coaxial, twisted pair etc. It helps in locating discontinuities in connectors, PCBs or in an electrial path.

Wavelength meter: It is a kind of interferometer used for wavelength measurements. It is also known as wavemeter.

Densitometer: It is an equipment used to measure degree of darkness (i.e. optical density) of photographic/semi-transparent materials. It is basically functions as light source which is aimed towards photo-electric cell.

Spectrophotometer:

It is an instrument which measures amount of light absorbed by sample as a function of wavelength. It does by diffracting light beam into spectrum of wavelengths and detecting their intensities with CCD and displaying results on the detector and later on display device in the form of graph. The figure-1 depicts working of Spectrophotometer.

Optical thickness gauge: It is used to measures the absolute optical thickness of materials which are 14 µm to 16 mm thick.

Lux meter: It is used for measurement of illuminances in the work places. Lux is measurement of overall intensity of light.

Best Fiber Optic Equipments

Optical Spectrum Analyzer: This fiber optic equipment covers Yokogawa Optical Spectrum Analyzer(OSA).It mentions features of AQ6370 Series Optical Spectrum Analyzer from Yokogawa. Other vendors of Optical Spectrum Analyzer are also mentioned.
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Optical Time Domain Reflectometer: This equipment covers Yokogawa Optical Time Domain Reflectometer.It mentions features of AQ7280 Optical Time Domain Reflectometer from Yokogawa. Other vendors of Optical Time Domain Reflectometer are also mentioned.
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Optical Wavelength Meter: This page of equipments section of T&M World covers Yokogawa Optical Wavelength Meter.It mentions features of AQ6150 Optical Wavelength Meter from Yokogawa. Other vendors of Optical Wavelength Meter are also mentioned.
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Densitometer: This fiber optic equipment covers Densitometer basics. It mentions features of densitometer from reputed vendors/manufacturers. Other vendors of densitometer are also mentioned.
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Spectrophotometer: This page covers Spectrophotometer or spectrometer basics.It mentions features of Spectrometer from reputed vendors/manufacturers. Other vendors of Spectrophotometer are also mentioned.
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Optical Thickness Guage: This page covers optical thickness gauge basics used for optical thickness measurement.It mentions features of optical thickness guage from reputed vendors/manufacturers. Other vendors of optical thickness guage are also mentioned.
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Lux meter: This fiber optic equipment covers Lux meter basics. It mentions features of Lux meter from reputed vendor. Other vendors of Lux meter are also mentioned.
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Night Vision Equipments and Devices: This page describes basics of night vision equipments and their principle of operation. The commonly used night vision devices are goggles, cameras, binoculars, monoculars, scopes etc.
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