EEE 404

Fiber Optic Communication

Shovasis Kumar Biswas

Lecturer
School of Engineering and Computer Science
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Independent University, Bangladesh
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: https://sites.google.com/site/shovasiskbiswas/
 Optical Fiber Transmission
 An optical fber consists of a central core clad
with a material of slightly lower refractive
index, as shown in Fig. 2.1. If the refractive
index of the core is constant, such a fber is
called a step-index fber. Most of the fbers are
made from glass, i.e., silica.

 The refractive index of the core is increased by

doping the silica with GeO2. The cladding is
pure silica.

 A polymer jacket is used to protect the fber

from moisture. For short-distance (<1 km) and
low-bit-rate (∼ Mb/s) transmission systems,
plastic fbers can be used. They are: (i)
inexpensive, (ii) flexible, and (iii) easy to install
and connect. However, they do not transmit
light effciently because of high absorption. For
long-distance and high-bit-rate systems, glass
fbers are typically used.
 Optical Fiber Transmission
Optical fbers have the following advantages over copper cable

 Bandwidth: To transmit more bits of information in a given time period, the

transmission medium should have a high bandwidth. Typically, the bandwidth is
of the order of the carrier frequency. In the case of optical signals, the carrier
frequency is 200 THz and the bandwidth of the fber is several THz, whereas the
bandwidth of the copper cable is typically several GHz or MHz.

 Attenuation: The loss of a silica optical fber is around 0.2 dB/km, which is much
lower than that of copper cable. Because of the lower loss, optical signals can
propagate over a longer distance without requiring repeaters.

 Electromagnetic interference (EMI): Optical fbers are not affected by

electromagnetic interference. This is because optical fbers are purely dielectric
waveguides with no metal parts. In the case of copper cables, electromagnetic
noise felds set up conduction currents which interfere with the signal
transmission.
 Ray theory transmission
Total internal reflection

To consider the propagation of light within an optical fiber utilizing the ray theory model
it is necessary to take account of the refractive index of the dielectric medium. The
refractive index of a medium is defined as the ratio of the velocity of light in a vacuum to
the velocity of light in the medium. A ray of light travels more slowly in an optically dense
medium than in one that is less dense, and the refractive index gives a measure of this
effect. When a ray is incident on the interface between two dielectrics of differing
refractive indices (e.g. glass–air), refraction occurs, as illustrated in Figure 2.2(a). It may be
observed that the ray approaching the interface is propagating in a dielectric of refractive
index n1 and is at an angle φ1 to the normal at the surface of the interface. If the dielectric
on the other side of the interface has a refractive index n2 which is less than n1, then the
refraction is such that the ray path in this lower index medium is at an angle φ2 to the
normal, where φ2 is greater than φ1. The angles of incidence φ1 and refraction φ2 are
related to each other and to the refractive indices of the dielectrics by Snell’s law of
refraction, which states that:
n1 sin φ1 = n2 sin φ2..........(1)
Ray theory transmission
 Ray theory transmission
It may also be observed in Figure 2.2(a) that a small amount of light is reflected back into
the originating dielectric medium (partial internal reflection). As n1 is greater than n2, the
angle of refraction is always greater than the angle of incidence. Thus when the angle of
refraction is 90° and the refracted ray emerges parallel to the interface between the
dielectrics, the angle of incidence must be less than 90°. This is the limiting case of
refraction and the angle of incidence is now known as the critical angle φc, as shown in
Figure 2.2(b). From Eq. (1) the value of the critical angle is given by:

n1 sin φc = n2

At angles of incidence greater than the critical angle the light is reflected back into the
originating dielectric medium (total internal reflection) with high efficiency (around
99.9%). Hence, it may be observed in Figure 2.2(c) that total internal reflection occurs
at the interface between two dielectrics of differing refractive indices when light is
incident on the dielectric of lower index from the dielectric of higher index, and the
angle of incidence of the ray exceeds the critical value.
 Ray theory transmission
The light ray shown in Figure 2.3 is known as a meridional ray as it passes through the
axis of the fiber core. This type of ray is the simplest to describe and is generally used
when illustrating the fundamental transmission properties of optical fibers.
 Acceptance angle
The geometry concerned with launching a light ray into an optical fiber is shown in
Figure 2.4, which illustrates a meridional ray A at the critical angle φc within the fiber at
the core–cladding interface. It may be observed that this ray enters the fiber core at an
angle θa to the fiber axis and is refracted at the air–core interface before transmission to
the core–cladding interface at the critical angle. Hence, any rays which are incident into
the fiber core at an angle greater than θa will be transmitted to the core–cladding
interface at an angle less than φc, and will not be totally internally reflected. This
situation is also illustrated in Figure 2.4, where the incident ray B at an angle greater
than θa is refracted into the cladding and eventually lost by radiation. Thus for rays to be
transmitted by total internal reflection within the fiber core they must be incident on
the fiber core within an acceptance cone defined by the conical half angle θa. Hence θa is
the maximum angle to the axis at which light may enter the fiber in order to be
propagated, and is often referred to as the acceptance angle* for the fiber.

θa is sometimes referred to as the maximum or total acceptance angle

Acceptance angle
Numerical Aperture
Numerical Aperture
Numerical Aperture
 Numerical Aperture

The Numerical Aperture (NA) is a measure of how much light can be collected by an optical
system such as an optical fibre or a microscope lens.

The NA is related to the acceptance angle, which indicates the size of a cone of light that can
be accepted by the fibre.
 Solved Problem : A silica optical fiber has a core refractive
index of 1.50 and a cladding refractive index of 1.47. Determine
(i) the critical angle at the core – cladding interface, (ii) the N.A
for the fiber and (iii) the acceptance angle for the fiber.

n1 = 1.50 ; n2 = 1.47
 n2   1.47 
 c  sin 1   = sin 1    78.5

The critical  1.50 
=
 n1 
angle

N . A  (n1  n2 )1
2 2 2
The numerical aperture
(1.50 2  1.47 2 )1 2
 0.30

The acceptance angle = 2a = 2 sin – 1 (N.A) = 2 sin – 1 (0.30) = 34.9

Critical angle = 78.5º ; N.A = 0.30 ; Acceptance angle = 34.9
 Skew Rays
Another category of ray exists which is transmitted without passing through the
fiber axis. These rays, which greatly outnumber the meridional rays, follow a
helical path through the fiber, as illustrated in Figure 2.6, and are called skew rays.
Optical fibers based on modes or mode types :

Mode is the one which describes the nature of

propagation of electromagnetic waves in a wave guide.
i.e. it is the allowed direction whose associated angles
satisfy the conditions for total internal reflection and
constructive interference.
Based on the number of modes that propagates
through the optical fiber, they are classified as:
Single mode fibers
Multi mode fibers
Single mode fibers:
In a fiber, if only one mode is transmitted through it, then it is
said to be a single mode fiber.
A typical single mode fiber may have a core radius of 3 μm and a
numerical aperture of 0.1 at a wavelength of 0.8 μm.

V
 
2πn1a 2

The normalized frequency is a dimensionless parameter and
hence is also sometimes simply called the V number or value of
the fiber.
The condition for the single mode operation is given by the V
number of the fiber which is defined as
such that V ≤ 2.405.
Here, n1 = refractive index of the core; a = radius of the core; λ =
wavelength of the light propagating through the fiber; Δ = relative
refractive indices difference.
The single mode fiber has the following characteristics:

Only one path is available.

V-number is less than 2.405
Core diameter is small
No dispersion
Higher band width (1000 MHz)
Used for long haul communication
Fabrication is difficult and costly
SINGLE MODE FIBER MULTI MODE FIBER
Multi mode fibers :
If more than one mode is transmitted through
optical fiber, then it is said to be a multimode fiber.
The larger core radii of multimode fibers make it easier to
launch optical power into the fiber and facilitate the end
to end connection of similar powers.

Some of the basic properties of multimode optical

fibers are listed below :
More than one path is available
V-number is greater than 2.405
Countd.
 Core diameter is higher
 Higher dispersion
 Lower bandwidth (50MHz)
 Used for short distance communication
 Fabrication is less difficult and not costly
Optical fibers based on refractive index profile :
Based on the refractive index profile of the core and
cladding, the optical fibers are classified into two types:
Step index fiber
Graded index fiber.
Step index fiber :
In a step index fiber, the refractive index changes in a
step fashion, from the centre of the fiber, the core, to
the outer shell, the cladding.
It is high in the core and lower in the cladding. The
light in the fiber propagates by bouncing back and
forth from core-cladding interface.
The step index fibers propagate both single and
multimode signals within the fiber core.
The light rays propagating through it are in the form
of meridinal rays which will cross the fiber core axis
during every reflection at the core – cladding
boundary and are propagating in a zig – zag manner.
The refractive index (n) profile with reference to the
radial distance (r) from the fiber axis is given as:
when r = 0, n(r) = n1
r < a, n(r) = n1
r ≥ a, n(r) = n2
 Graded index fibers
Graded index fibers do not have a constant refractive index in the core* but a
decreasing core index n(r) with radial distance from a maximum value of n1 at the
axis to a constant value n2 beyond the core radius a in the cladding. This index
variation may be represented as:

where Δ is the relative refractive index difference and α is the profile parameter
which gives the characteristic refractive index profile of the fiber core.
Comparison between Multi-Mode and Single-
Mode Fibers
 Single-Mode Fiber Design Considerations
The parameters that are important for the design of a single-mode fber are

(i) cutoff wavelength,

(ii) fber loss,
(iii) dispersion,
(iv) dispersion slope,
(v) polarization mode dispersion, and
(vi) spot size.

Using a step-index optical fber, it is not possible to optimize all these parameters.
Therefore, the refractive index profle n(r) is chosen so that the design parameters
listed above are optimum for a specifc application.
 Cutoff Wavelength

For high-bit-rate and long-haul applications, it is essential that the fber is

single-moded. The single mode condition for a step-index fber is given by

If the operating wavelength is less than , the fber will not be single-moded.
Example
Solved Problem (1) : Calculate the V – number and number
of modes propagating through the fiber having a = 50 μm,
n1 = 1. 53, n2 = 1.50 and λ = 1μm.
n1 = 1.53 ; n2 = 1.50; λ = 1μm.
1
 2a   2a  2 2 2
V - Number     N.A   
 1 (n  n 2 )
     

 
1
2  3.142  50 2 2
 1.53  1.50 2
1
 94.72
V 2 94 .72 2
The number of modes propagating through the fiber M N    4486
2 2

V – number = 94.72 ; No. of modes = 4486

Exercise (1) : Find the core radius necessary for
single mode operation at 850 nmof step index
fiber with n1 = 1.480 and n2 = 1.465.
Hint: V – number = 2.405 ( for single mode fiber)

 2a   2a  1
V    N.A     n1  (2) 2
     

a = core radius = 1.554 μm

 Fiber Loss
Before the advent of optical amplifers, the maximum transmission distance of a fber-
optic system was determined by the fber loss, as the optical receivers need a certain
amount of optical power to detect the transmitted signal reliably. Now the optical
amplifers are widely used and yet the maximum reach is affected by the fber loss. This
is because the optical amplifers add noise which in turn is proportional to the fber loss.
In other words, the amount of noise in a long-haul communication system is
directly related to fber loss. In addition, if the fber loss is small, the amplifer
spacing can be increased, which reduces the system cost. So, it is important to
design a fber with the lowest possible loss.

Let us consider a CW input to the fber. The optical feld distribution is given by

The optical power is given by

Next, let us consider the origin of fber loss. The light wave is attenuated as it
propagates in fber mainly due to (i) Rayleigh scattering and (ii) material
absorption. In the following subsections, we discuss these mechanisms in
details.
 Rayleigh Scattering
Consider a perfect crystal with uniformly spaced atoms or molecules. When a light wave is incident
on this crystal, electrons in the atoms oscillate and emit light waves of the same frequency as the
incident light wave under a linear approximation. In other words, each atom acts as a tiny receiving
and transmitting antenna. The light emitted by an atom could be in all directions. However, for a
perfect crystal with uniformly spaced atoms or molecules, it can be shown that the emitted light
waves add up coherently in the direction of the incident light wave; in any other direction, we get no
light as they add up destructively. In other words, in a perfect crystal, there is no scattering of
incident light.

Next, consider a crystal with defects such as atoms missing or irregularly placed in the lattice
structure. In this case, light waves emitted by atoms may not add up destructively over a range of
directions, which leads to scattering. Rayleigh scattering is the scattering of light by atoms or
molecules of size much smaller than the wavelength of the light. It is an important mechanism
arising from local microscopic fluctuations in density and compositional variations. The fluctuations
in density correspond to irregularly spaced atoms or molecules in a lattice structure and as a result,
incident light is scattered over a range of angles as shown in Fig. 2.33. If the angle of scattering is less
than the critical angle, it will escape to the cladding and then be absorbed at the polymer jacket. A
part of the optical feld is back-reflected as well, due to Rayleigh scattering which propagates as a
backward-propagating mode. These effects lead to loss of power in the forward-propagating
direction. The loss coeffcient due to Rayleigh scattering can be written as
Because of the strong wavelength dependence of Rayleigh scattering, short wavelengths
(blue) are scattered more than long wavelengths (red). The scattering at 400 nm is 9.2
times as great as that at 700 nm for equal incident intensity. Rayleigh scattering of
sunlight in a clear atmosphere is the reason why the sky is blue. This also explains why the
sun looks red in the morning/evening. The distance between the sun and an observer is
large in the morning/evening and the light has to go through a thicker atmosphere,
causing the lower wavelengths (violet, blue) to suffer higher losses (see Eq. (2.178)) and
their intensities would be too low to detect.
The dominant contributions to the fber loss come from Rayleigh scattering in the
wavelength range of practical interest, 1550–1620 nm. One of the reasons why fber-
optic communication systems operate in the infrared region instead of the visible
region (400–700 nm) is that the loss due to Rayleigh scattering is much smaller in the
former region because of its 4 dependence. Fig. 2.34 shows the measured loss
spectrum
of a single-mode fber with 9.4 μm core diameter and Δ = 0.0019 [3]. As can be seen, the
lowest fber loss occurs at 1.55 μm wavelength. For the silica fber, at = 1.55 μm, the loss
due to Rayleigh scattering alone is R = 0.1559 dB∕km. Thus, for the fber shown in Fig.
2.34, 77% of the total loss at 1.55 μm comes from Rayleigh scattering.
 Material Absorption
Material absorption can be divided into two types: (a) intrinsic absorption and
(b) extrinsic absorption.
 Dispersion
Modal dispersion:
 Spreading of a pulse occur because different modes (paths)
through the fiber take different times
 Only happens in multimode fiber
 Reduced, but not eliminated, with graded-index fiber
Chromatic dispersion:
 Different wavelengths travel at different speeds through the fiber
 This spreads a pulse in an effect named chromatic dispersion
 Chromatic dispersion occurs in both single mode and
multimode fiber
 Larger effect with LEDs than with lasers A far smaller effect than
modal dispersion
 Dispersion
Waveguide dispersion:
 Index change across waveguide means that different
wavelengths have different delays.
 Waveguide dispersion occurs because different spectral
components of a pulse travel with different velocities by the
fundamental mode of the fiber.
Polarization mode dispersion:
 Light with different polarization can travel at different speeds,
if the fiber is not perfectly symmetric at the atomic level
 This could come from imperfect circular geometry or stress on
the cable, and there is no easy way to correct it
 It can affect both single mode and multimode fiber
 Dispersion-Compensating Fibers (DCFs)
For long-haul and/or high-bit-rate optical communication systems, the pulse
broadening due to intramodal dispersion leads to intersymbol interference, which
degrades transmission performance. The pulse broadening can be compensated
using a DCF, as shown in Fig. 2.37.

To keep the output pulse width equal to the input pulse width, we require
Dispersion in Multi-Mode Fibers
Dispersion in Multi-Mode Fibers
Dispersion in Multi-Mode Fibers
Dispersion in Multi-Mode Fibers
Dispersion in Multi-Mode Fibers
 Power and the dBm Unit
The optical power in dBm units is expressed as

The optical power in mW units is expressed as

Example:
Problem: A multimode fiber with a 50 μm core diameter is designed to limit the
intermodal dispersion to 10 ns/km. What is the numerical aperture of this fiber?
What is the limiting bit rate for the transmission over 10 km at 0.88 μm? Refractive
index of the core = 1.45.
Problem 1 Consider a fiber-optic system consisting of a fiber with loss F, followed by
an amplifier of gain G. The launch power is Pin. Calculate the output power of the
amplifier in linear and log units.
Thank you