SECX1038 - OPTICAL COMMUNICATION

(Common to ECE & ETCE)

UNIT III OPTICAL DETECTORS

Optical detectors – pn detector, pin detector, avalanche photodiode - Principles of

operation, concepts of responsivity, sensitivity and quantum efficiency, noise in detection.

Multichannel Transmission Technique-Multichannel Frequency Modulation, Subcarrier

multiplexing. WDM Concepts and Components.

3.1 Optical Detectors

Detectors perform the opposite function of light emitters. They convert optical signals
back into electrical impulses that are used by the receiving end of the fiber optic data, video, or
audio link. The most common detector is the semiconductor photodiode, which produces current
in response to incident light.

3.1.1 Principles of Optical Detectors

The photo detector works on the principle of optical absorption. The main requirement of
light detector or photo detector is its fast response. For fiber optic communication purpose most
suited photodetectors are PIN (p-type- Intrinsic-n-type diodes and APD (Avalanche photodiodes)

The performance parameters of a photo detector are responsivity, quantum efficiency,

response time and dark current

Cut-off Wavelength (λc)

Any particular semiconductor can absorb photon over a limited wavelength range. The
highest wavelength is known as cui-off wavelength (i.e). The cut-off wavelength is determined
by band gap energy and is given by

------ (3.1)

where,

λg in electron volts (eV)

λc cut-off wavelength is in μm,

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Quantum Efficiency

The quantum efficiency is defined as the number of electron-hole carrier pair generated
per incident photon of energy hv and is given as

---- (3.2)

Detector Responsivity

The responsivity of a photo detector is the ratio 01 the current output in amperes to the
incident optical power in watts

---- (3.3)

Working of Photodiodes

In order to convert the modulated light back into an electrical signal, photodiodes of
photodetectors are used. As the intensity of optical signal at the receiver is very low, the detector
has to meet high performance specifications.

 The conversion efficiency must be high at the operating wavelength.

 The speed of response must be high enough to ensure that signal distortion does not
occur.

 The detection process introduces the minimum amount of noise.

 It must be possible to operate continuously over a wide range of temperatures for many
years.

 The detector size must be compatible with the fiber dimensions.

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V-I Characteristics of Photodiode

Fig. 3.1 V-I Characteristics of Photodiode

V-I Characteristics of Photodiode is shown in figure 3.1 with different three regions.

Forward bias, region 1: A change in incident power causes a change in terminal voltage, it is
called as photovoil.lic mode. If the diode is operated in this mode, the frequency response of the
diode is poor and so photovoltaic operation is rarely used in optical links.

Reverse bias, region 2: A change in optical power produces a proportional change in diode
current, it is called as photoconductive mode of operation which most detectors use.

Avalanche breakdown region 3: When biased in this region, a photo generated electron-hole
pair causes avalanche breakdown, resulting in large diode for a single incident photon.

3.2 PIN Photodiode

PIN diode consists of an intrinsic semiconductor sandwiched between two heavily doped
p-type and n-type semiconductors as shown in Fig. 3.2.

Fig. 3.2 PIN Photodiode

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 Sufficient reverse voltage is applied so as to keep intrinsic region free from carriers, so its
resistance is high, most of diode voltage appears across it, and the electrical forces are strong
within it. The incident photons give up their energy and excite an electron from valance to
conduction band. Thus a free electron hole pair is generated, these are called as photocarriers.
These carriers ate collected across the reverse biased junction resulting in rise in current in
external circuit called photocurrent.

In the absence of light, PIN photodiodes behave electrically just like an ordinary rectifier
diode. If forward biased, they conduct large amount of current.

PIN detectors can be operated in two modes Photovolt.lic and photoconductive. In

photovoltaic mode, no bias is applied to the detector. In this case the detector works very slow,
and output is approximately logarithmic to the input light level. Real world fiber optic receivers
never use the photovoltaic mode.

In photoconductive mode, the detector is reverse biased. The output in this case is a
current that is very linear with the input light power.

The intrinsic region somewhat improves the sensitivity of the device. It does not provide
internal gain. The combination of different semiconductors operating at different wavelengths
allows the selection of material capable of responding to the desired operating wavelength.

Table 3.1. Characteristics of Common PIN Photodiodes

3.3 Avalanche Photodiode (APD)

When a p-n junction diode is applied with high reverse bias breakdown can occur by two
separate mechanisms direct ionization of the lattice atoms, zener breakdown and high velocity

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carriers causing impact ionization of the lattice atoms called avalanche breakdown. APDs use the
avalanche breakdown phenomena for its operation. The APD has its internal gain which
increases its responsivity.

Fig. 3.3 shows the schematic structure of an APD. By virtue of the doping concentration
and physical construction of the n+ p junction, the electric field is high enough to cause impact
ionization. Under normal operating bias, the I layer (the p- region) is completely depicted. This is
known as reach through condition, hence APDs are also known as reach through APD or
RAPDs.

Fig. 3.3 APD schematic and variation of E-field across diode

Similar to PIN photodiode, light absorption in APDs is most efficient in I-layer. In this region.
the E·field separates the carriers and electrons drift into the avalanche region where carrier
multiplication occurs. If the APD is biased close to breakdown, it will result in reverse leakage
current. Thus APDs are usually biased just below breakdown, with the bias voltage being tightly
controlled.

The multiplication for all carriers generated in the photodiode is given as

---- (3.4)

IM - Average value of total multiplied output current.

Ip - Primary un multiplied photocurrent.

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 Responsivity of APD is given by

----- (3.5)

Table 3.2 Comparision of PIN and APD

Important Formulae for PIN and APD

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3.4 Multichannel Transmission Technique
 Multiplexing technique is used to transmit multiple analog signals over the same higher
capacity fiber cable.

 Number of baseband signals are superimposed on a set of N sub-carrier of frequencies f1,

f2, f3 …fN.

 Channel or signal multiplexing can be done in the time or frequency domain through
Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM) and Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM). The
methods of multiplexing includes Vestigial Sideband Amplitude Modulation (VSB-AM),
frequency Modulation (FM) and Sub-Carrier Multiplexing (SCM)

The capacity of optical communication systems can exceed 10 Tb/s because of a large
frequency associated with the optical carrier. In practice, however, the bit rate was limited to 10
Gb/s or less until 1995 because of the limitations imposed by the dispersive and nonlinear effects
and by the speed of electronic components. Since then, transmission of multiple optical channels
over the same fiber has provided a simple way for extending the system capacity to beyond 1
Tb/s. Channel.

Fig. 3.4: Multichannel point-to-point fiber link

Figure 3.4 shows schematically such a point-to-point, high-capacity, WDM link. The
output of several transmitters, each operating at its own carrier frequency (or wavelength), is
multiplexed together. The multiplexed signal is launched into the optical fiber for transmission to
the other end, where a demultiplexer sends each channel to its own receiver. When N channels at
bit rates B1, B2, . . ., and BN are transmitted simultaneously over a fiber of length L, the total bit
rate–distance product, BL, becomes

BL = (B1+B2+· · ·+BN)L. ----- (3.6)

For equal bit rates, the system capacity is enhanced by a factor of N. An early experiment
in 1985 demonstrated the BL product of 1.37 (Tb/s)-km by transmitting 10 channels at 2 Gb/s
over 68.3 km of standard fiber with a channel spacing of 1.35 nm [3].The ultimate capacity of

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WDM fiber links depends on how closely channels can be packed in the wavelength domain.
The minimum channel spacing is limited by interchannel crosstalk.

Typically, channel spacing Δν ch should exceed 2B at the bit rate B. This requirement
wastes considerable bandwidth.It is common to introduce a measure of the spectral efficiency of
a WDM system as ηs = B/Δνch. Attempts are made to make ηs as large as possible.

Table 3.3 High-capacity WDM transmission experiments

3.5 Multichannel Frequency Modulation

 The CNR requirement can be relaxed by changing the modulation format from AM to
FM. The BW of FM carrier is considerably larger (30 MHz in place of 4 MHz). This
results in S/N ratio improvement over C/N ratio.
 S/N ratio at the output of FM detector is :

---- (3.7)
where,
B is required bandwidth.
Δfpp is peak to peak frequency deviation of modulator.
fv is highest video frequency.
W is weighing factor for white noise
 The total S/N improvement is ranging between 36-44 dB.

3.6 Sub-Carrier Multiplexing (SCM)

Sub-Carrier Multiplexing (SCM) is employed in microwave engineering in which

multiple microwave carriers for transmission of multiple channels are used. If the microwave
signal is transmitted optically by using optical fibers, the signal bandwidth can be exceeded up to
10 GHz for a single optical carrier. Such a scheme is referred to as SCM. Since multiplexing is
done by using microwave sub-carrier rather than the optical carrier.

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 The input can be analog or digital baseband signal. The input signals are modulated
subcarriers are then combined to give FDM signal. The FDM signals are then combined in
microwave combiner. The combine signal is then modulates the intensity of semiconductor laser
by adding it to bias current. Fig. 3.5 shows this arrangement.

Fig. 3.5 Sub carrier multiplexing

The received optical signal is then passed through low noise pin photo detector to convert
it to original signal.
Advantages of SCM
1. Wide bandwidth.
2. Flexibility and upgradability in design of broadband networks.
3. Analog or digital modulation or combination of two for transmitting multiple voice,
data and video signals to large number of users.
4. Both AM and FM techniques can be used for SCM.
5. A combination of SCM and WDM can realize DW upto 1 MHz.
6. SCM technique is also being explored for network management and performance
monitoring.

3.7 WDM Concepts and Components

A powerful aspect of an optical communication link is that many different wavelengths
can be sent along the fiber simultaneously. The technology of combining a number of
wavelengths onto the same fiber is known as wavelength-division multiplexing or WDM. The
key system features of WDM are as follows:

 Capacity upgrade. WDM can increase the capacity of a fibre network dramatically.
 Transparency. An important aspect of WDM is that each optical channel can carry any
transmission format
 Wavelength routing. The use of wavelength-sensitive optical routing devices makes it
possible to use wavelength as another dimension in designing communication network
and switches.

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  Wavelength switching. Whereas wavelength-routed networks are based on a rigid fibre
infrastructure, wavelength-switched architectures allow reconfigurations of the optical
layer.

3.7.1 Operational Principles of WDM

 The implementation of WDM network requires a variety of passive and/or active devices
to combine, distribute, isolate, and amplify optical power at different wavelength. Figure
3.6 shows the use of such components in a typical WDM link.



 Fig. 3.6 Block diagram of WDM
 Here, a multiplexer is needed to combine the optical outputs into a serial spectrum of
closely spaced wavelength signals and couple them onto a single fibre. At he receiving
end, a demultiplexer is required to separate the optical signals into appropriate detection
channels for signal processing.

Passive Components

 Passive devices operates completely in the optical domain to split and combine light
streams. They include N x N couplers (with N ≥ 2), power splitters, power taps, and star
couplers.
 Basically, most passive WDM devices are variations of a star-coupler concept. Figure
below shows a generic star coupler, which can perform both power combining and
splitting.

Fig. 3.7 Block diagram of passive components

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 In the broadest application, star couplers combine the light streams from two or more
input fibres and divide them among several output fibres. In the general case, the splitting
is done uniformly for all wavelengths.
 A common fabrication method for an N x N splitter is to fuse together the core of N
single-mode fibres over a length of few millimetres.
 The optical power inserted through one of the N fibre entrance ports gets divided
uniformly into the cores of the N output fibres through evanescent power coupling in the
fused region.
 Couplers with 64 inputs and outputs are possible, although, more commonly, the size
tends to be less than 10.
 The three fundamental technologies for making passive components are based on optical
fibres, integrated optical waveguides, and bulk microoptics

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