Fiber Optic Glossary

• Kbps
  Abbreviation for kilobits per second. 1,000 bits per second.
• Kelly Sidebands
  Sidebands in the spectrum of certain mode-locked lasers, related to periodic disturbance of solitons
• Kerr Effect
  A nonlinear interaction of light in a medium with an instantaneous response, related to the nonlinear electronic polarization.
• Kerr Lens
  A lensing effect arising from the Kerr nonlinearity.
• Kerr lens mode locking
  A technique for mode locking a laser, exploiting nonlinear self-focusing.
• Kevlar
  E.I. DuPont's trade name for an aramid yarn used as a strength member in the jacket of fiber optic...
• Key
  A short pin or other projection that slides into a mating or groove to guide two parts being assembled. It can...
• Keying
  Feature to mechanically and positively code similar connectors to allow mating to a specific connector.
• kHz
  One thousand cycles per second.
• Kilo Hertz (KHz)
  1,000 Hz.
• Kilobyte (KB)
  A standard measure of data used with memory. Equal to 1,024 bytes (2 to the tenth power).
• Kilometer
  One thousand meters or 3,281 feet. The kilometer is a unit of measurement for fiber optics.
• KPSI
  A unit of tensile strength expressed in thousands of pounds per square inch.
• Kuizenga Siegman theory
  A theory predicting the durations of pulses from actively mode-locked lasers.

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