Understanding Fiber Optics, 5th ed.

by Jeff Hecht

Published by Prentice Hall

A Few Words from the Author

Understanding Fiber Optics is a tutorial introduction to fiber-optic communications and optical networking. It's written to be easily accessible to people entering the fiber-optics field, and is widely used as an introductory textbook, for corporate training, or self-study. The book will help you understand the field, including such hot topics as wavelength division multiplexing and optical switching. It includes a buzzword-to-English glossary, and tables of those standard data rates and formulas that you wish you could remember. This book won't prepare you for heavy-duty system design, but neither will it baffle you with partial differential equations.

The previous edition was prepared in the midst of the telecommunications bubble, when fiber-optic technology was evolving at a torrid pace and the industry was growing at an incredible rate. Now that things have calmed down, I have taken the time to make this edition a better book. I have rewritten the introductory three chapters to be clearer to newcomers, and improved illustrations and explanations through the whole book. The systems described are those out in the real network, not the marketing fantasies that the industry wanted to believe during the bubble. I've also added important new trends, including broadband Internet access, fiber to the home, digital television, and automotive fiber optics. The table of contents listed below may look little-changed from the fourth edition, but most chapters have undergone extensive revisions to make them clear, accurate, and up-to-date.

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction to Fiber Optics
2. Fundamentals of Fiber-Optic Components
3. Fundamentals of Communications
4. Types of Optical Fibers
5. Properties of Optical Fibers
6. Fiber Materials, Structure, and Manufacture
7. Specialty Fibers
8. Cabling
9. Light Sources
10. Transmitters
11. Receivers
12. Amplification, Regeneration and Wavelength Conversion
13. Connectors and Splices
14: Couplers and Other Passive Components:
15: Wavelength-Division Multiplexing Optics
16: Optical Switches, Modulators, and Other Active Components
17. Fiber-Optic Measurements
18: Troubleshooting and Test Equipment
19: System and Optical Networking Concepts
20. Fiber System Standards
21: Single-Channel System Design
22: Optical Networking System Design
23: Global Telecommunication Applications
24: Regional and Metro Telecommunications
25: Local Telephone or "Access" Networks
26. Internet Access and Local-Area Networks
27. Video Transmission
28: Mobile Fiber-Optic Communications
29. Fiber-optic Sensors
30. Imaging and Illuminating Fiber Optics

Appendices
A: Important Constants, Units, Conversion Factors, and Equations
B: Decibels and Equivalent Power Ratios
C. Standard Time-Division Multiplexing Rates
D. ITU Frequencies and Wavelengths for L- and C-bands
E. Laser and Fiber Safety
F. Fiber-Optic Resources
Glossary
Index

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