Website: http://hexagon.physics.wisc.edu/research/technical %20info/newport_fiber_tutorial.

pdf Optical Fibers: -Optical fibers are circular dielectric waveguides that can transport optical energy and information. They have a central core surrounded by a concentric cladding with slightly lower (by 1%) refractive index. Fibers are typically made of silica with index-modifying dopants such as GeO2. A protective coating of one or two layers of cushioning material (such as acrylate) is used to reduce crosstalk between adjacent fibers and the loss-increasing microbending that occurs when fibers are pressed against rough surfaces. For greater environmental protection, fibers are commonly incorporated into cables. Typical cables have a polyethylene sheath that encases the fiber within a strength member such as steel or Kevlar strands.

Radiation Fibers: -Radiation modes carry energy out of the core; the energy is quickly dissipated. - a radiation mode or unbound mode is a mode which is not confined by the fiber core. Such a mode has fields that are transversely oscillatory everywhere external to the waveguide, and exists even at the limit of zero wavelength. -In an optical fiber, a Radiation mode is one having fields that are transversely oscillatory everywhere external to the waveguide, and which exists even at the limit of zero wavelength. Specifically, a radiation mode is one for which where is the imaginary part (phase term) of the axial propagation constant, integer is the azimuthal index of the mode, n (a ) is the refractive index, where a is the Core radius, and k is the free-

space Wave number, k = 2/, where is the wavelength. Radiation Modes correspond to refracted rays in the terminology of geometric optics.

- Radiation modes in fibers are not trapped in the core & guided by the fiber but they are still solutions of the Maxwell eqs. with the same boundary conditions. These infinite continuum of the modes results from the optical power that is outside the fiber acceptance angle being refracted out of the core.

Guided Fibers: Guided modes are confined to the core, and propagate energy along the fiber, transporting information and power. If the fiber core is large enough, it can support many simultaneous guided modes. Each guided mode has its own distinct velocity and can be further decomposed into orthogonal linearly polarized components. Any field distribution within the fiber can be expressed as a combination of the modes. The two lowest-order guided modes of a circularly symmetric fiberdesignated LP01 and LP11are illustrated at right. When light is launched into a fiber, the modes are excited to varying degrees depending on the conditions of the launchinput cone angle, spot size, axial centration and the like. The distribution of energy among the modes evolves with distance as energy is exchanged between them. In particular, energy can be coupled from guided to radiation modes by perturbations such as microbending and twisting of the fiberincreasing the attenuation.

-Scattering can couple energy from guided to radiation modes, causing loss of energy from the fiber.

Leaky Mode: http://www.rp-photonics.com/leaky_modes.html -A leaky mode or tunneling mode in an optical fiber or other waveguide is a mode having an electric field that decays monotonically for a finite distance in the transverse direction but becomes oscillatory everywhere beyond that finite distance. Such a mode gradually "leaks" out of the waveguide as it travels down it, producing attenuation even if the waveguide is perfect in every respect. In order for a leaky mode to be definable as a mode, the relative amplitude of the oscillatory part (the leakage rate) must be sufficiently small that the mode substantially maintains its shape as it decays. - leaky modes have oscillatory fields in the cladding, allowing power to leak out of the fibre -Note: Leaky Modes correspond to leaky rays in the terminology of geometric optics. Leaky modes experience attenuation, even if the Waveguide is perfect in every respect -Leaky modes lose power as they propagate along the fiber. For a mode to remain within the core, the mode must meet certain boundary conditions. -They are partially confined to the core & attenuated by continuously radiating this power out of the core as they traverse along the fiber (results from Tunneling effect which is quantum mechanical phenomenon.) A mode remains n2 k < < n1k guided as long as

Bandwith Limitations: Bandwidth of an optical fiber determines the amount of information that can be supported, in other words, the data rate. The mechanism that limits a fibers bandwidth is known as dispersion. Dispersion is the spreading of the optical pulses as they travel down the fiber. The result is that pulses then begin to spread into one another and the symbols become indistinguishable. There are two main categories of dispersion, intermodal and intramodal

Bandwidth Summary Different propagation pathways cause delays, or modal dispersion in multimode fibers. Modal dispersion provides the principle bandwidth limitation for laser-based multimode fiber systems at 850 nanometers, and for both laser and LED systems at 1300 nanometers. Spectral dispersion provides the principle bandwidth limitation for LED based systems at the first window of 850 nanometers of about 100 MHz-km, and for single mode laser-based systems typically more than 50 GHz-km at the 1300 nanometer region. The basic loss mechanism, or attenuation, within fibers is caused by light scattering which varies by wavelength. The 1300 nanometer wavelength is important because not only is the attenuation low at this point, but spectral dispersion is generally a minimum at this wavelength. Fibers have a constant loss over a wide range of modulation rates, but there is a rapid increase in effective loss when pulse dispersion becomes comparable to the pulse period at or near maximum bandwidth limits. Contrast this with baseband metallic systems where attenuation increases as the square root of the modulation rate. Provided dispersion is small, fiber systems do not require equalization and line amplifiers which are necessary with metallic systems.

IPX is a network layer protocol (layer 3 of theOSI Model), while SPX is a transport layer protocol (layer 4 of the OSI Model). The SPX layer sits on top of the IPX layer and provides connection-oriented services between two nodes on the network. SPX is used primarily by client/server applications. IPX and SPX both provide connection services similar to TCP/IP, with the IPX protocol having similarities to IP, and SPX having similarities toTCP. IPX/SPX was primarily designed for local area networks (LANs), and is a very efficient protocol for this purpose (typically its performance exceeds that of TCP/IP on a LAN [citation needed]). TCP/IP has, however, become the de facto standard protocol. This is in part due to its superior performance over wide area networks and the Internet (which uses TCP/IP exclusively), and also because TCP/IP is a more mature protocol, designed specifically with this purpose in mind.

Despite the protocols' association with NetWare, they are neither required for NetWare communication (as of NetWare 5.x), nor exclusively used on NetWare networks. NetWare communication requires an NCP implementation, which can use IPX/SPX, TCP/IP, or both, as a transport.