Optical Fibre

• digital data transmitted by pulses of light

• enormous bandwidth (~1-2 Gbps for 10s kms)

• system composed of:

  light source (LED or laser diode)
  
  detector (photodiode)
  transmission medium (ultra thin fibre of glass ~2-125_m)

• used for

  long distance telephone lines
  
  LANs (just coming in)

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