Absorption
A term describing the phenomenon wherein a light`s power is attenuated, or reduced in intensity, by transference into another form of energy, most often heat, but sometimes mechanical conversion including sound.

Acceptance angle
The maximum con half-angle for which incident light is captured by and will travel through the optical fibre.

Acrylate
A polymer material used in optical fibres as primary coating.

Adapter
A passive device used to join two connectors and fibre cores together. Usually defined by connector type such as SC, FC ST etc. Can be in a hybrid form to join dissimilar connectors together, such as an SC to an FC. Often referred to as a coupling, bulkhead, or interconnect sleeve.

Add/Drop devices and multiplexing
The ability to add or drop specific portions of a signal from a stream without multiplexing or demultiplexing the entire signal.

Analog
A signal that varies continuously. The frequency and bandwidth are measured in hertz.

Angle of refraction
The angle a ray follows when passing from one medium to another.

Angular misalignment loss
This is the loss of optical power due to an angular deviation from the optimal angle and alignment between the source to another fibre, or to a detector for instance.

APC (Angled Physical Contact Connector)
A connector, mostly single mode, whose angled endface assures low mated reflectance and low unmated reflectance. The protocol worldwide is generally following an 8 degree angle with a .2 degree tolerance, a radius of curvature of 5-12 mm, a maximum apex offset of 50 microns, and fibre protrusion of +/- 50 nanometers. Typical return loss is less than -70 dB.

APON
An Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) based Passive Optical Network (PON).

Aramid yarn
The strength element contained in cable to provide tensile strength, resistance to bending etc. Kevlar is a brand of aramid fibre.

Attenuation
This is the decrease of loss of signal, light beam, or lightwave power as a result of absorption, reflectance, scattering, deflection, diffusion or dispersion.

Attenuation coefficient
The rate of optical power loss with respect to distance along the fiber, usually measured in decibels per kilometer (dB/km) at a specific wavelength.

Attenuator
A device for decreasing the amount of light which passes through it.

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