Elenco Fiber Optics Voice Data Kit - Manual (Page 15)

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Modern technology creates a better image
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Earlier, you observed how thousands of parallel filaments transferred an image from one side of
the Ulexite to the other. Now it's time to take a closer look at man's improvements on Nature's
multiple-fiber product.
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10 Ч 10 Ч 2.5 mm (.4 Ч .4 Ч .10 inch) glass-like material
25 Ч 25 Ч 6 mm (1 Ч 1 Ч .25 inch) piece of material
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• Lay both items side by side on this printed page.
(If either material has a opaque protective sheet
on its sides, remove it.)
• Move each piece over several square inches of
printed material while looking down from the
top, and then at an angle.
• Determine which material has image-transferring
properties like Ulexite. How would you compare
the image transferring properties (the visual
clarity) of the man-made material to Ulexite
used in the previous experiment?
• How is the image different (if at all) than the one
you observed when using the Ulexite crystal?
• Turn each element on one of its narrow sides and see if you can observe an image of the printed
material through the side.
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After completing the steps above, you should have determined that the larger piece of material
has no image-transferring properties, while the smaller and thinner piece does. The larger piece is
actually just common acrylic plastic. The thinner material is a man-made material composed of
thousands of tiny glass optical fibers that function like the octahedron links in Ulexite. However, the
image-transferring properties of the manufactured element are far superior to those of Ulexite. There
are no cloudy or dark spots across its surface, and it does not have the
yellowish haze of Ulexite. When you turn the plastic piece on edge, it will
appear transparent, just as when you look down through its broader surface.
An image will not be visible through the sides.
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For a group of fibers to transmit an image from one side to the other,
all the fibers must be parallel to each other. Fiber bundles that transmit
images such as you have seen in this experiment are variously called
coherent bundles, image conduits, or image guides. (Fiber optic elements
whose width and length are greater than their depth are often called
faceplates — and that definition fits the image-transferring element we used
in this experiment.) Fiber bundles which have non-parallel fibers and do not
transmit the original "arranged" form are referred to as "non-coherent
elements."
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