Glass forming: Stained glass, Optical fiber, Precision glass moulding, Glassblowing, Glass production, Architectural glass, Lampworking, Art glass, Paperweight, Warm glass, J&R Lamb Studios, Glass beadmaking, Float glass, Glass casting, Diamond turning

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 66. Chapters: Stained glass, Optical fiber, Precision glass moulding, Glassblowing, Glass production, Architectural glass, Lampworking, Art glass, Paperweight, Warm glass, J&R Lamb Studios, Glass beadmaking, Float glass, Glass casting, Diamond turning, Fourcault process, Fused glass, Millefiori, Caneworking, Glass cutter, Fusion splicing, Crown glass, Figuring, Broad sheet glass, Cylinder blown sheet glass, Polished plate glass, Slumping, Overflow downdraw method, Machine drawn cylinder sheet glass, Stained glass fusing, Blown plate glass, Pressed glass, Flame polishing. Excerpt: An optical fiber is a flexible, transparent fiber made of very pure glass (silica) not much wider than a human hair that acts as a waveguide, or "light pipe", to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber. The field of applied science and engineering concerned with the design and application of optical fibers is known as fiber optics. Optical fibers are widely used in fiber-optic communications, which permits transmission over longer distances and at higher bandwidths (data rates) than other forms of communication. Fibers are used instead of metal wires because signals travel along them with less loss and are also immune to electromagnetic interference. Fibers are also used for illumination, and are wrapped in bundles so they can be used to carry images, thus allowing viewing in tight spaces. Specially designed fibers are used for a variety of other applications, including sensors and fiber lasers. An optical fiber junction box. The yellow cables are single mode fibers; the orange and blue cables are multi-mode fibers: 50/125 µm OM2 and 50/125 µm OM3 fibers respectively.Optical fiber typically consists of a transparent core surrounded by a transparent cladding material with a lower index of refraction. Light is kept in the core by total internal reflection. This causes the fiber to act as a waveguide. Fibers that support many propagation paths or transverse modes are called multi-mode fibers (MMF), while those that only support a single mode are called single-mode fibers (SMF). Multi-mode fibers generally have a larger core diameter, and are used for short-distance communication links and for applications where high power must be transmitted. Single-mode fibers are used for most communication links longer than 1,050 meters (3,440 ft). Joining lengths of optical fiber is more complex than joining electrical wire or cable. The ends of the fibers must be carefully cleaved, and then spliced together either mechanically or by fusing them together with heat. Special