Fibre optics are most commonly associated with communications-and with the telecoms crash that followed when too many firms built too many identical fibre-optic networks, and the traffic to fill them never materialised. But fibre optics can do more than just act as pipes for transporting data; they can also be used as sensors that can gather data. Compared with electrical sensors, they are smaller, cheaper, longer lasting and can operate at much higher temperatures (600℃ rather than 125℃). And unlike electrical sensors, fibre-optic sensors are not susceptible to electromagnetic interference and can therefore be reliably used in power plants, magnetic-resonance imaging laboratories and other situations where such interference abounds.
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