INTERNATIONAL INTERCOMPARISON OF ATTENUATION IN FIBER OPTIC SYSTEMS - MULTIMODE FIBER AND LED-BASED COMPARISON

The result of the international intercomparison of incremental attenuation steps of a multimode fiber optics attenuator at 850 nm is reported. In multimode systems, the measurement value varies with the measuring conditions such as the light source spectrum and spatial distribution of light at launching into the fiber. Therefore, a specially designed step attenuator is used as the transfer standard, and reference conditions have been set up. The maximum differences among the mean values of the measurements were less than 0.03 dB/10 dB. The result shows the possibility of using a step attenuator as an attenuation standard in multimode fiber optic systems under specific reference conditions.