Basic Concepts

I. Historical Introduction

II. Total Internal Reflection (TIR)

III. The Optical Fiber

IV. The Coherent Bundle

V. The Numerical Aperture (NA)

VI. Attenuation in Optical Fibers

VII. Pulse Dispersion in Step-Index Fibers (SIF)

VIII. Parabolic-Index Fibers (PIF)

IX. Material Dispersion

X. Dispersion and Maximum Bit Rate

XI. Single-Mode Fibers

A. Spot size of the fundamental mode

B. Splice loss due to transverse misalignment

C. Waveguide dispersion

D. Dispersion-shifted fibers

XII. Plastic Optical Fibers (POF)

XIII. Fiber Optic Sensors

A. Extrinsic fiber optic sensors

B. Intrinsic sensors