What does a Fibre attenuator do?

What does a Fibre attenuator do?

An optical attenuator, or fiber optic attenuator, is a device used to reduce the power level of an optical signal, either in free space or in an optical fiber. The basic types of optical attenuators are fixed, step-wise variable, and continuously variable.

What is fiber attenuation?

The attenuation of an optical fiber measures the amount of light lost between input and output. Total attenuation is the sum of all losses. Optical losses of a fiber are usually expressed in decibels per kilometer (dB/km).

What is a 5dB attenuator?

Description. This Fiber Optic Attenuator, Fixed – LC/UPC 5dB is necessary to prevent over saturating an optical receiver when the optical power is too high. Using attenuators will ensure low bit error rates and prevent damage to receiving components.

What is laser attenuation?

In principle, attenuating a laser beam, i.e., reducing its optical power, is an easy thing: simply send it through a partially absorbing medium, or exploit a partial reflection. In practice, however, various nasty problems can arise, some of which are discussed in the following.

What is LC attenuator?

LC Fiber Optical Attenuator is used in fiber optic communications to reduce optical fiber power at a certain fixed value. The most commonly used type is female to male plug type optic fiber attenuator, and it has the fiber Connector at one side and the other side is a female type fiber optic adapter.

How do you calculate fiber attenuation?

To calculate the loss in the fiber optic cable, multiply the length times the attenuation at each wavelength: 0.3 km x 3.5 dB/km @ 850 nm = 1.05 dB loss and 0.3 km x 1.5 dB/km @ 1,300 nm = 0.45 dB loss. For the connector loss, 3 connectors x 0.75 dB = 2.25 dB.

How can Fibre attenuation be amplified?

OSNR can be increased by increasing the output optical power, decreasing the amplifier noise figure, and decreasing the optical loss per fiber. However, the number of amplifiers can be decreased only when the span length is increased (meaning that the total signal attenuation will be increased).

What does attenuation dB mean?

communication signal strength
Attenuation in computer networking is the loss of communication signal strength that is measured in decibels (dB). As the rate of attenuation increases, the transmission, such as an email a user is trying to send or a phone call, becomes more distorted.

What is a good power meter reading?

Although meters measure a negative number for loss, convention has us saying the loss is a positive number, so we say the loss is 3.0 dB when the meter reads – 3.0 dB. While most power meters have ranges of +3 to –50 dBm, most sources are in the range of 0 to –10 dBm for lasers and –10 to –20 dBm for LEDs.