What is the difference between Single Mode and Multi Mode?

What is the difference between Single Mode and Multi Mode? How do Fiber Optic Cables Work? How are Fiber Optic Cables Made? Read the fiber optic training information below to learn more about the different types of Fiber Optic Cables. Or, for pictures of Fiber Optic Cables, visit our Fiber Optic Cables page.
The problem with "glass" or optical fiber is determining how to guide the light through optical fiber that might be hundreds or even thousands of miles in length. The key comes from your school physics lessons. You may remember shining some light through glass blocks, for instance prisms, and seeing how it was bent, or "refracted" when it left the glass. If you sent the light into the glass at an angle greater than the "critical angle," it would be totally reflected within the block and not exit where you expected. It all single-mode, multi-mode fiber optics, pictures of fiber optic cable, fiber optic pictures, free fiber optic training, how it works, Singlemode fiber, Multimode fiber, Types of Fiber Cables
has to do with refractive indices and is analytically explained by a principal called Snell's Law. Snell's law basically states that the refractive index of a material determines how quickly light can travel through it.
Once you have your optical fiber core of pure silica, you add an extra layer of glass known as "cladding," which has a lower refractive index than the core. This refractive index difference guides the light in the core allowing as little as possible to leave through the sides (according to Snell's Law). On top of the cladding layer are polymer coatings that make it easier to handle the fiber and help prevent damage to the fiber.
The size of the optical fiber core determines how light travels through it. Each optical signal can actually generate many different lightwaves. These lightwaves can all travel through the fiber at the same time. This is allowed to happen in appropriately named 'multimode' fibers, but can cause problems when each wave arrives at the end of the fiber slightly out of sync. Most modern optical networks will use 'singlemode' fiber, which has a much smaller core than multimode. The core size is small enough to ensure that only one lightwave from each optical signal can travel inside the fiber. This ensures there are no problems at the receiving end.
To give you an idea of sizes, a singlemode fiber's core is usually around 10 micrometers in diameter (0.000010m) with cladding over 12 times thicker, or a diameter of 125 micrometers (0.000125m or 0.125mm). Once the polymer coatings are added, the whole package may be around 0.25 millimeters in diameter. Still very small. Even the very pure glass in optical fiber "attenuates" light. This means it causes some of the intensity of the light to be lost within the fiber. These losses can be due to several mechanisms: light losing its energy to atoms in the fiber or absorption (this is the mostprevalent), single-mode, multi-mode fiber optics, pictures of fiber optic cable, fiber optic pictures, free fiber optic training, how it works, Singlemode fiber, Multimode fiber, Types of Fiber Cables
light scattering because of slight changes in the core's refractive index, and light scattering because the core is not always a perfect cylinder.
Now that you know some of the basics on fiber cables, we'll have a little more fiber optic training on the two types of fiber optic cables, singlemode and multi-mode fiber
Singlemode fiber
A mode is one of the various lightwaves transmitted in an optical fiber. Each optical signal generates many different modes but, in singlemode fiber, the desire is to have only one of them transmitted. This is achieved through having a core with a very small diameter (usually around 10 micrometers). Singlemode fiber has a higher bandwidth than Multimode and, for this reason, it is the ideal transmission medium for many applications
Multimode fiber
Multimode fiber is an optical fiber in which more than one mode can be transmitted through the core. A multimode fiber core is much larger in diameter than a singlemode fiber core (usually 6-8 times the size). This larger core size generally has greater bandwidth and is easier to couple and interconnect. It allows hundreds of rays of light to propagate through the same fiber simultaneously.
How Fiber Optic Signals are Transmitted
Light that travels along the fiber is made up of a binary code that pulses "off" and "on" and determines what information a signal contains. The advantage of fiber is that these on/off pulses can be almost anything: translated video, computer, or voice data depending on the type of transmitter and receiver used.
Advantages of Fiber Optic Cables Over Copper
Speed: Fiber optic networks can operate at speeds of up to 2.5 gigabits-per-second, versus 1.54 megabits per second for copper
Bandwidth: Taken in bulk, it would take approximately 33 tons of copper cable to transmit the same amount of information handled by 1/4 pound of optical fiber.
Resistance: Fiber optic cables have a greater resistance to electromagnetic noise such as motors, radios, or other nearby cables. Because optical fibers carry beams of light, they are free of electrical interference and noise.
Types of Fiber Cables
single-mode, multi-mode fiber optics, pictures of fiber optic cable, fiber optic pictures, free fiber optic training, how it works, Singlemode fiber, Multimode fiber, Types of Fiber Cables Now that you know a little more about the two types of fiber optic cables, we'll have a little more fiber optic training on different forms those two types of glass can be combined together with cable jackets and overall jackets. Both Multimode and Singlemode Fiber Optic Cable can come in many different forms. Typically, Fiber Optic Patch Cables will be assembled in Duplex for Multimode Cables and Simplex for Singlemode Cables. A Duplex Multimode cable is one that contains two fiber optic cables, generally in the form of a zip cable. This duplex cable is used in networking applications where there is a transmit and receive signal. Duplex fiber optic zip cable is the orange cable pictured at the bottom of this photograph. Simplex Singlemode Cables are typically yellow and have one fiber optic cable. In most cases the outer coating of singlemode cables will be yellow, and multimode cables will be orange.
Trunk Fiber Optic Cables are becoming more and more prevalent. Several examples of trunk fiber optic cables are pictured in the photograph to the left. Cypress Industries specializes in terminating trunk fiber optic cables with multiple strands and multiple connectors.
Plastic Optical Fiber (POF) is a newer plastic-based fiber cable which promises performance similar to Single Mode Cable but at a lower cost. POF in general is still in the infancy stage although many companies are noticing its potential.
Thank you for reading our Fiber Optic Training online information. Should you have any other questions on products, or need ordering information, please do not hesistate to contact us. Our staff is very helpful and knowledgeable, and can walk you through the ordering process to determine what type of fiber optic cable you may need.