quote:
Originally posted by saralk
In fibre-optics, they have cladding, which is a boundry outside the core that has a lower refractive index than the core itself, so the useful range of the core is reduced and the pulsese don't overlap and scrambling doesn't happen.
Can someone who knows a lot about this, tell me: if the light defracts into the cladding, what stops is totally internally reflecting on the edge of the cladding and then reflecting back into the core and causing scrambling?
I'm definitely no expert in this topic, but since no one else was replying, I thought I would.
I believe that since the light wave has been refracted into the cladding, it's simply "lost" as you already know. I guess your real question is, why is it lost? The answer is since it has a lower reflective index (if you Google, you'll get the equations), it cannot reflect the light thats been refracted into it and therefore it can't reflect back.
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