There are two types of fiber known as step index and graded index fiber. step index fiber is fiber type cylindrical waveguide core with inner core has a uniform refractive index of n1 and the core is surrounded by an outer cladding with a uniform refractive index of n2. While the graded index fiber has a core made from many layers of glass and also have the graded index fiber, the refractive index is not uniform within the core. Here this article gives the difference between step index fiber and graded index fiber to know more details about this topic.
Step index fiber :
- In this fiber data rate is very slow.
- The ray path of light propagation is looked like Zig Zag manner.
- Step index fiber of two types of fiber known as mono-mode fiber and multimode fiber.
- Coupling efficiency with fiber is very high.
- In step-index fiber the diameter of the core is about 50 -200 micrometers in the case of multimode fiber while In 10 micrometers in the case of single-mode fiber.
- Attenuation is too much more.
- The refractive index of the core is high.
- The bandwidth is low.
- It is mostly used in the application of local network communication.
Graded index fiber :
- Graded index fiber data rate is very high.
- The path of light is helical in manner.
- Graded index fiber is of only one type that are called as multimode fiber.
- Coupling efficiency is very low.
- While graded-index fiber the diameter of the core is about 50 micrometer in the case of uses multimode fiber.
- Attenuation is less.
- The Refractive index is non-uniform.
- The bandwidth is high.
- It is most commonly used in local and wide area networks.
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