Optical Fiber Types

Multimode Fibers (MMF)

Standard Single-Mode Fiber (SMF)

Characteristics:

Small Core: 8 um

Small change in refractive index: 0.36 %

Cut-off wavelength: 1260 nm

Attenuation:

 - 0.34 dB/km at 1310 nm

·         - 0.20 dB/km at 1550 nm

Chromatic Dispersion:

·         -  Zero at 1310 nm

·         -17 ps/nm/km at 1550 nm

Dispersion Shifted Fiber (DSF)

Zero dispersion point can be shifted with modified waveguide design. However at small dispersion non-linear effects increase.

Non-Zero Dispersion Shifted Fiber (NZ-DSF)

Dispersion is small but is not zero. Refractive index profile can be modified.

Low Water Peak Fiber

The main advantage is no water peak attenuation thus increasing the availability of spectral bandwidth. Nowadays low water peak fibers allow the use of all CWDM wavelength channels.

Large Effective Area Fibre (LEAF)

Polarisation Maintaining Fiber (PMF)