How does fiber optic attenuator work?

As we all know, too little or too little optical power will cause equipment errors. Too

much power will saturate the receiving amplifier, while too little power will interfere

with the signal and cause noise problems. An optical fiber attenuator is an optical

device that can be used to attenuate the input power to avoid distortion of the optical

receiver due to excessive power.

The optical fiber attenuator reduces the optical power through the absorption,

reflection, diffusion, scattering, deflection, diffraction and dispersion. How to reduce

the power light level? The fiber attenuator is set in a working wavelength range that

can absorb light energy. Within this range, it will not reflect light and reduce

unnecessary echo reflection. In this way, the optical power attenuation effect is

achieved. Usually, the optical attenuator is made by air isolation technology,

displacement dislocation technology, attenuation fiber technology, absorption glass

method, etc.

The normally attenuation range of the optical attenuator is 0~65dB. The attenuation

power of the fixed attenuators on the market is between 1 and 30dB. Fixed fiber

attenuator is a type of fiber attenuator, which fixes the attenuation power at an

attenuation value. It is commonly used in telecommunication networks, fiber optic test

equipment, local area networks (LAN) and cable television (CATV) systems.

There is also a variable optical attenuator. The attenuation level of the variable

attenuator can be adjusted, for example, from 0.5 dB to 20 dB, or even 50 dB. Some

variable attenuators have very fine resolution, such as 0.1dB or even 0.01dB. Mainly

used in: optical distribution frame, optical fiber network system, high-speed optical

fiber transmission system, cable television (CATV) system, long-distance trunk line

dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) system, optical add/drop multiplexer

(OADM).

Among them, the fixed optical attenuator has pigtail type, converter type and so on. It

can be made into FC, SC, ST, LC, MU and other interface types, which is convenient to

use in daily cabling. Generally, a single optical attenuator has two interfaces, male and

female, which can be male-female or female-female. The male connector interface is

generally used to plug into the receiver of the device or the adapter on the adapter

panel, and the female connector interface is used to connect the fiber jumper. HYC can

provide various types of fixed female and male optical fiber attenuators with stable

performance and reliable quality, which can meet the requirements of various

connector interface types and working wavelength customization of ST, SC, FC, MU,

and LC.

Fiber optic attenuators are widely used in optical passive devices. The performance

indicators to measure the optical attenuator mainly include attenuation, insertion loss,

and attenuation accuracy, return loss, etc. High-performance optical attenuators have

low insertion loss, and return loss is usually above 40dB.

HYC Co., Ltd was founded in 2000, has 20 years experiences in OEM ODM

manufacturing of passive optical devices. We focus on providing customers one-stop

services of the design, R&D and manufacturing of passive optical communication

devices. We have fiber optic connectors, fiber optic jumpers, WDM wavelength

division multiplexing, PLC optical splitters, MEMS optical switches and other product

lines.