1 00:00:00,090 --> 00:00:02,490 The following content is provided under a Creative 2 00:00:02,490 --> 00:00:04,030 Commons license. 3 00:00:04,030 --> 00:00:06,330 Your support will help MIT OpenCourseWare 4 00:00:06,330 --> 00:00:10,690 continue to offer high-quality educational resources for free. 5 00:00:10,690 --> 00:00:13,320 To make a donation or view additional materials 6 00:00:13,320 --> 00:00:17,260 from hundreds of MIT courses, visit MIT OpenCourseWare 7 00:00:17,260 --> 00:00:20,550 at ocw.mit.edu. 8 00:00:20,550 --> 00:00:23,170 PROFESSOR: Now, we've replaced the previous fiber 9 00:00:23,170 --> 00:00:24,852 with another one. 10 00:00:24,852 --> 00:00:27,310 The only difference between this fiber and the previous one 11 00:00:27,310 --> 00:00:30,910 is that the core diameter is now a little bit bigger. 12 00:00:30,910 --> 00:00:35,485 It's about 6 microns instead of 4 microns in the previous one. 13 00:00:35,485 --> 00:00:38,240 The setup is exactly the same. 14 00:00:38,240 --> 00:00:41,050 Again, we have the laser here getting 15 00:00:41,050 --> 00:00:44,080 reflected by this mirror and this mirror into the lens, 16 00:00:44,080 --> 00:00:46,180 into this fiber-- 17 00:00:46,180 --> 00:00:47,470 this new fiber. 18 00:00:47,470 --> 00:00:52,300 And then, the output of the fiber goes onto the screen. 19 00:00:52,300 --> 00:00:56,214 So let's now take a look at the output of this fiber. 20 00:00:56,214 --> 00:00:57,520 Aha. 21 00:00:57,520 --> 00:01:00,910 So the first thing we see, that doesn't look like a single-mode 22 00:01:00,910 --> 00:01:03,020 at all, that single low. 23 00:01:03,020 --> 00:01:07,720 And if I change the adjustment-- if we can have a camera looking 24 00:01:07,720 --> 00:01:09,275 at my adjustments-- 25 00:01:12,600 --> 00:01:20,910 then you see that I can get a variety of shapes. 26 00:01:20,910 --> 00:01:22,920 All I'm doing is changing the adjustment, 27 00:01:22,920 --> 00:01:24,900 and I can get a variety of shapes. 28 00:01:24,900 --> 00:01:27,420 And clearly, it's not like what we 29 00:01:27,420 --> 00:01:33,320 had before-- the single-mode behavior that we had before. 30 00:01:33,320 --> 00:01:35,810 And this is then the so-called multi-mode. 31 00:01:35,810 --> 00:01:39,200 What you're seeing are different transverse modes 32 00:01:39,200 --> 00:01:42,350 that can propagate in this fiber, 33 00:01:42,350 --> 00:01:44,750 because the core diameter is bigger. 34 00:01:44,750 --> 00:01:49,760 But I'm going to leave it to you then to explain why-- 35 00:01:49,760 --> 00:01:54,530 exactly why you get higher transverse modes 36 00:01:54,530 --> 00:01:57,920 propagated in this fiber. 37 00:01:57,920 --> 00:01:59,610 Again, the wavelength is the same. 38 00:01:59,610 --> 00:02:05,490 The only difference is that the core diameter is bigger. 39 00:02:05,490 --> 00:02:08,020 You can see this one here, you get a nice, dark line 40 00:02:08,020 --> 00:02:08,919 in the middle. 41 00:02:08,919 --> 00:02:13,080 And then if I align it over here, you can see it's blobby. 42 00:02:13,080 --> 00:02:14,080 It's a mixture of modes. 43 00:02:14,080 --> 00:02:17,200 That's why you don't see a sharp, dark line in the middle 44 00:02:17,200 --> 00:02:19,113 where you get a mixture of modes. 45 00:02:19,113 --> 00:02:20,530 While, remember, in the other one, 46 00:02:20,530 --> 00:02:22,670 no matter what I did in the alignment, 47 00:02:22,670 --> 00:02:28,330 it was still single-mode coming out-- just one low coming out. 48 00:02:28,330 --> 00:02:32,800 Now, multi-mode fibers have many applications also. 49 00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:36,730 But for today, for a lot of sophisticated sensor 50 00:02:36,730 --> 00:02:40,810 applications and communications, one generally 51 00:02:40,810 --> 00:02:42,790 uses single-mode fibers. 52 00:02:42,790 --> 00:02:49,070 So here a pretty mode with a dark line down the middle. 53 00:02:49,070 --> 00:02:54,670 Now, what I would like to do is show how touchy this fiber 54 00:02:54,670 --> 00:02:57,130 is to bending. 55 00:02:57,130 --> 00:02:59,770 In fact, If we take a look at the fiber here, 56 00:02:59,770 --> 00:03:05,560 as soon as I just press on it-- if we take a close look-- 57 00:03:05,560 --> 00:03:07,595 I can kick light kit light out. 58 00:03:07,595 --> 00:03:11,110 If I just simply press on it, I can kick some light out. 59 00:03:11,110 --> 00:03:15,970 So it's very touchy to stress and to bends. 60 00:03:15,970 --> 00:03:18,160 What I would like to do then is show 61 00:03:18,160 --> 00:03:23,650 that I can kick out some of the transverse modes 62 00:03:23,650 --> 00:03:27,070 by simply bending or stressing the fiber. 63 00:03:27,070 --> 00:03:31,300 What I'm going to do is then bend this fiber. 64 00:03:31,300 --> 00:03:36,940 And if you watch in the inset, and see that the intensity will 65 00:03:36,940 --> 00:03:38,020 go down. 66 00:03:38,020 --> 00:03:43,500 But if I keep increasing the bend, 67 00:03:43,500 --> 00:03:48,630 I end up with a single-mode propagation but weak. 68 00:03:48,630 --> 00:03:53,340 And this illustrates that you can strip off the high order 69 00:03:53,340 --> 00:03:57,930 modes by simply bending the fiber. 70 00:03:57,930 --> 00:04:02,520 But the penalty is you get much less light getting propagated. 71 00:04:02,520 --> 00:04:04,890 So here we have single-mode propagation, 72 00:04:04,890 --> 00:04:08,220 and here we have multi-mode or a mixture of multi-modes that 73 00:04:08,220 --> 00:04:10,890 are propagating in the fiber. 74 00:04:10,890 --> 00:04:13,470 Again, you can see that there's a lot of light that 75 00:04:13,470 --> 00:04:14,550 gets kicked out-- 76 00:04:14,550 --> 00:04:16,200 has to be kicked out of the fiber. 77 00:04:16,200 --> 00:04:20,279 You can see the bend absolutely low. 78 00:04:20,279 --> 00:04:26,580 In fact, this bending effect on the transmission 79 00:04:26,580 --> 00:04:31,180 of light in a fiber can be used as a sensor-- 80 00:04:31,180 --> 00:04:36,180 a sensor of pressure, a sensor of stress, 81 00:04:36,180 --> 00:04:37,720 bends, and what have you. 82 00:04:40,680 --> 00:04:43,830 So then, in summary, we've looked 83 00:04:43,830 --> 00:04:48,840 at the propagation of laser light in a single-mode fiber, 84 00:04:48,840 --> 00:04:54,000 and we also saw what happens when the fiber core is a little 85 00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:58,320 bit big, and we saw the propagation of multi-modes. 86 00:04:58,320 --> 00:05:01,530 And, as I mentioned earlier, the popular fiber today 87 00:05:01,530 --> 00:05:03,720 is the single-mode fiber. 88 00:05:03,720 --> 00:05:06,060 But, again, there are applications 89 00:05:06,060 --> 00:05:09,050 for multi-mode fibers.