A fiber pigtail is a piece of hardware used to connect a single-mode optical fiber to a connector or connect two fibers together.
The pigtail is typically made out of the same material as the cable it will be connected to, but with a single core instead of multiple cores.
The pigtail contains cladding and an outer jacket layer around the cladding, as well as an adhesive coating that holds it in place.
A fiber pigtail is made of three individual parts: a jacket (the outer casing), strength members (the core), and a buffer coating.
The buffer coating protects the strength members from damage or contamination, while the strength members protect the optical fibers themselves.
The combined components are strong enough to support their own weight, but they’re still flexible enough to be bent into a U-shape without snapping.
SC adapters can either have male connectors on them, with the pigtails being female or vice versa—don’t worry about it too much if you’re not dealing with any actual hardware yourself, as it’s not something that’s super easy for most people to tell apart just by looking at it.
In any case, there’s usually a small gap between the two connectors that allows space for the pigtail’s buffers to prevent interference in signal transfer.
Conclusion:
A fiber pigtail is a cable assembly that’s made up of a fiber optic connector on one end and a fiber optic cable on the other. It can be used for anything from computer data transmission to medical imaging to communications in space.