Chapter 1.

Introduction

1.1 History of Fiber Optics

Since its invention in the early 1970s, the use of and demand for optical fiber have grown

tremendously. The uses of optical fiber today are quite numerous. With the explosion of

information traffic due to the Internet, electronic commerce, computer networks, multimedia,

voice, data, and video, the need for a transmission medium with the bandwidth capabilities for

handling such vast amounts of information is paramount. Fiber optics, with its comparatively

infinite bandwidth, has proven to be the solution.

The fibering of America began in the early 1980s. At that time, systems operated at 90 Mb/s. At

this data rate, a single optical fiber could handle approximately 1300 simultaneous voice

channels. Today, systems commonly operate at 10 Gb/s and beyond. This translates to over

130,000 simultaneous voice channels. Over the past five years, new technologies such as dense

wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) and erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA) have

been used successfully to further increase data rates to beyond a terabit per second (>1000

Gb/s) over distances in excess of 100 km. This is equivalent to transmitting 13 million

simultaneous phone calls through a single hair-size glass fiber. At this speed, one can transmit

100,000 books coast to coast in 1 second!

1.2 Block diagram of Optical fiber communication:

The basic blocks of fiber optic communication systems are transmitter, optical fiber cable and
receiver. The transmitter consists of light source and its associated drive circuit, optical fiber
cable offers mechanical and environment protection to optical fibers contained inside and
receiver consists of photodetector, amplification and signal restoring circuit Information to be
conveyed enters an electronic transmitter. In electronic transmitter it is converted into electrical
form, modulated and multiplexed. The electrical signal then goes to optical transmitter where it
is converted into optical form i.e. into light. The light signal is then transmitted over optical fiber.
At the receiver end, light signal is received by optical detector which converts the light signal
into an electrical signal. The electrical signal then enters into electronic receiver where electrical
signal is processed to get the exact information.

Transmitter: The heart of the transmitter is a light source. The main function of light source is to
convert an information signal from its electrical form into light. LEDS and laser diodes are used
as light sources.

Optical Fiber: The transmission medium in fiber optic communication systems is an optical fiber.
The optical fiber is the transparent and flexible filament that guides light from a transmitter to a
receiver. The optical fiber provides the connection between a transmitter and a receiver. The
optical fiber basically consists of two concentric layers, the light carrying core and the cladding.
The cladding acts as a refractive index medium which allows the light to be transmitted through
the core and to the other end with very little distortion or attenuation.

Receiver: The heart of an optical receiver is the photo detector. The major task of a photo
detector is to convert an optical information signal back into an electrical signal.
1.3 Basic Principle:

The concept of light propagation, the transmission of light along an optical fiber, can be
described by two theories. According to the first theory, light is described as a simple ray. This
theory is the ray theory, or geometrical optics, approach. The advantage of the ray approach is
that you get a clearer picture of the propagation of light along a fiber. The ray theory is used to
approximate the light acceptance and guiding properties of optical fibers. According to the
second theory, light is described as an electromagnetic wave. This theory is the mode theory, or
wave representation, approach. The mode theory describes the behavior of light within an optical
fiber. The mode theory is useful in describing the optical fiber properties of absorption,
attenuation, and dispersion. Ray Theory

Two types of rays can propagate along an optical fiber. The first type is called meridional
rays. Meridional rays are rays that pass through the axis of the optical fiber. Meridional rays are
used to illustrate the basic transmission properties of optical fibers.

The second type is called skew rays. Skew rays are rays that travel through an optical fiber
without passing through its axis.

MERIDIONAL RAYS. - Meridional rays can be classified as bound or unbound rays. Bound
rays remain in the core and propagate along the axis of the fiber. Bound rays propagate through
the fiber by total internal reflection. Unbound rays are refracted out of the fiber core. Figure 2-10
shows a possible path taken by bound and unbound rays in a step-index fiber. The core of the
step-index fiber has an index of refraction n1. The cladding of a step-index has an index of
refraction n2, that is lower than n1. Figure 1 assumes the core-cladding interface is perfect.
However, imperfections at the core-cladding interface will cause part of the bound rays to be
refracted out of the core into the cladding. The light rays refracted into the cladding will
eventually escape from the fiber. In general, meridional rays follow the laws of reflection and
refraction.

Figure 1. - Bound and unbound rays in a step-index fiber.

Rays that enter the fiber must intersect the core-cladding interface at an angle greater than the
critical angle (). Only those rays that enter the fiber and strike the interface at these angles will
propagate along the fiber.

How a light ray is launched into a fiber is shown in figure 2. The incident ray I1 enters the fiber at
the angle ;a. I1 is refracted upon entering the fiber and is transmitted to the core-cladding
interface. The ray then strikes the core-cladding interface at the critical angle (; c). I1 is totally
reflected back into the core and continues to propagate along the fiber. The incident ray I 2 enters
the fiber at an angle greater than ;a. Again, I2 is refracted upon entering the fiber and is
transmitted to the core-cladding interface. I2 strikes the core-cladding interface at an angle less
than the critical angle (). I2 is refracted into the cladding and is eventually lost. The light ray
incident on the fiber core must be within the acceptance cone defined by the angle ;a shown in
figure 3.

Angle ;a is defined as the acceptance angle. The acceptance angle (;a) is the maximum angle to
the axis of the fiber that light entering the fiber is propagated. The value of the angle of
acceptance (;a) depends on fiber properties and transmission conditions.

Figure 2. - How a light ray enters an optical fiber.

Figure 3. - Fiber acceptance angle.

The acceptance angle is related to the refractive indices of the core, cladding, and medium
surrounding the fiber. This relationship is called the numerical aperture of the fiber.
The numerical aperture (NA) is a measurement of the ability of an optical fiber to capture light.
The NA is also used to define the acceptance cone of an optical fiber.

Figure 3 illustrates the relationship between the acceptance angle and the refractive indices. The
index of refraction of the fiber core is n 1. The index of refraction of the fiber cladding is n 2. The
index of refraction of the surrounding medium is n0. By using Snell's law and basic trigonometric
relationships, the NA of the fiber is given by:
Since the medium next to the fiber at the launching point is normally air, n 0 is equal to 1.00. The
NA is then simply equal to sin ;a.

The NA is a convenient way to measure the light-gathering ability of an optical fiber. It is used to
measure source-to-fiber power-coupling efficiencies. A high NA indicates a high source-to-fiber
coupling efficiency.

Source-to-fiber coupling efficiency is described in chapter 6. Typical values of NA range from

0.20 to 0.29 for glass fibers. Plastic fibers generally have a higher NA. An NA for plastic fibers
can be higher than 0.50.

Q. 1. Find the critical angle at the core-cladding interface and numerical aperture for the fiber
having core refractive index of 1.55 and a cladding refractive index of 1.50.
Q. 2. An optical fiber has core refractive index of 1.50 and the cladding refractive index of 1.450.
Calculate

(i) The critical angle for core-cladding interface.

(ii) The acceptance angle in air for the fiber.

(iii) The numerical aperture of the fiber.

(iv) The percentage of light collected by the fiber assuming that the diameters of the core of fiber
is greater than the diameter of the light source.