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Noun Explanation of Several Common Optical Passive Devices

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Noun Explanation of Several Common Optical Passive Devices

1) What is the PON?

PON is the English abbreviation of Passive Optical Network. Because of its large transmission capacity, low maintenance cost and fiber dosage saving, PON has now become the main optical access technology in the world, and is widely used mainly by the fiber to the home (FTTH) network construction. PON is mainly comprised of OLT, optical splitter and ONU. According to the agreement, PON can be divided into EPON, GPON, WDM-PON and so on.

2) What is the optical passive device?

Optical passive device is a kind of optical components which does not rely on any outside optical or electrical energy, and can do some optical functions by their own, such as coupler, filter and so on. Its working principle complies with the physical and geometrical optics theory, while laser transceiver device based on photoelectric energy conversion is called active devices.

3) How is the optical passive device classified?

Optical passive devices can be classified according to their production process and functions. According to the different production process, optical passive devices can be divided into fiber optical passive devices and integrated optical passive devices. According to the different functions, they can be divided into optical connection devices, optical attenuator, optical splitter, optical wavelength distribution devices, optical isolation devices, optical switch, optical modem devices and so on.

4) What is the main technical indicators to evaluate optical passive devices?

The main technical indicators to evaluate optical passive devices are: insertion loss, return loss, bandwidth, with ups and downs, power allocation error, the wavelength isolation, channel isolation, channel width, extinction ratio, switching speed, speed and so on. Different devices have different requirements of technical indicators, but most of the optical passive devices need the requirements of low insertion loss, high reflection loss, and wide working bandwidth.

5) What is the PLC?

PLC is the English abbreviation of Planar Lightwave Circuit, namely the planar optical waveguide. The optical passive device and traditional vertical difference, PLC devices are used by semiconductor fabrication, which can integrate the optical components with different functions into one chip. PLC is the basic technology of photoelectric device integration, modularization, miniaturization. The devices those are used PLC technology include: optical splitter, arrayed waveguide grating (AWG), variable optical attenuator (VOA), variable optical attenuation combiner (VMUX), reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) and so on.

6) What are the advantages of PLC splitter compared to FBT optical splitter?
Compared with the traditional device FBT splitter used of FBT(Fused Biconical Taper) processing, PLC splitter has wide work wavelength channel loss, good uniformity, small volume, wide working temperature range, high reliability, is currently the preferred connection of OLT and ONU and the realization of optical signal power distribution PON the access network.

7) What is the difference between Full-band PLC splitter and three FBT window splitter?

Due to the working principle and the limit of process, traditional FBT splitter can generally meet the transfer at most three different wavelength, which is called the three window splitter. While the loss of PLC splitter is very low in a very wide wavelength range (1260-1650nm), so in addition to meet the three a window outside the commonly used, PLC splitter can also be used for transmission and management more work wavelength. So PLC splitter is called full-band splitter. The wavelength requirements of EPON and GPON standards were 13101490 and 1550nm, the next generation PON standard (such as WDM-PON) will require more work wavelength. The use of PLC optical branch devices can better adapt to the needs of future network upgrade and development.

Common Passive Fiber Optical Splitters

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Fiber optical splitter, also named fiber optic coupler or beam splitter, is a device that can distribute the optical signal (or power) from one fiber among two or more fibers. Fiber optic splitter is different from WDM(Wavelength Division Multiplexing) technology. WDM can divide the different wavelength fiber optic light into different channels, but fiber optic splitter divide the light power and send it to different channels.

Work Theory Of Optical Splitters

The Optical Splitters “split” the input optical signal received by it between two optical outputs, simultaneously, in a pre-specified ratio 90:10 or 80:20. The most common type of fiber-optic splitter splits the output evenly, with half the signal going to one leg of the output and half going to the other. It is possible to get splitters that use a different split ratio, putting a larger amount of the signal to one side of the splitter than the other. Splitters are identified with a number that represents the signal division, such as 50/50 if the split is even, or 80/20 if 80% of the signal goes to one side and only 20% to the other.

Some types of the fiber-optic splitter are actually able to work in either direction. This means that if the device is installed in one way, it acts as a splitter and divides the incoming signal into two parts, sending out two separate outputs. If it is installed in reverse, it acts as a coupler, taking two incoming signals and combing them into a single output. Not every fiber-optic splitter can be used this way, but those that can are labeled as reversible or as coupler/splitters.

Attenuation Of Fiber Optic Splitter

An interesting fact is that attenuation of light through an optical splitter is symmetrical. It is identical in both directions. Whether a splitter is combining light in the upstream direction or dividing light in the downstream direction, it still introduces the same attenuation to an optical input signal (a little more than 3 dB for each 1:2 split). Fiber optic splitters attenuate the signal much more than a fiber optic connector or splice because the input signal is divided among the output ports. For example, with a 1 X 2 fiber optic coupler, each output is less than one-half the power of the input signal (over a 3 dB loss).

Passive And Active Splitters

Fiber optic splitters can be divided into active and passive devices. The difference between active and passive couplers is that a passive coupler redistributes the optical signal without optical-to-electrical conversion. Active couplers are electronic devices that split or combine the signal electrically and use fiber optic detectors and sources for input and output.

Passive splitters play an important position in Fiber to the Home (FTTH) networks by permitting a single PON (Passive Optical Network) network interface to be shared amongst many subscribers. Splitters include no electronics and use no power. They’re the community parts that put the passive in Passive Optical Network and are available in a wide range of break up ratios, including 1:8, 1:16, and 1:32.

Optical splitters are available in configurations from 1×2 to 1×64, such as 1:8, 1:16, and 1:32. There are two basic technologies for building passive optical network splitters: Fused Biconical Taper (FBT) and Planar Lightwave Circuit (PLC). FBT Coupler is the older technology and generally introduces more loss than the newer PLC Splitter.