Fiber Optics

Optical fibers are made from either glass or plastic. Most are roughly the diameter of a human hair, and
they may be many miles long. Light is transmitted along the center of the fiber from one end to the other,
and a signal may be imposed. Fiber optic systems are superior to metallic conductors in many applications.
Their greatest advantage is bandwidth. Because of the wavelength of light, it is possible to transmit a
signal that contains considerably more information than is possible with a metallic conductor — even a
coaxial conductor. Other advantages include:

• Electrical Isolation — Fiber optics do not need a grounding connection. Both the transmitter and the
receiver are isolated from each other and are therefore free of ground loop problems. Also, there is no
danger of sparks or electrical shock.

• Freedom from EMI — Fiber optics are immune to electromagnetic interference (EMI), and they emit
no radiation themselves to cause other interference.

• Low Power Loss — This permits longer cable runs and fewer repeater amplifiers.

• Lighter and Smaller — Fiber weighs less and needs less space than metallic conductors with equivalent
signal-carrying capacity.

Copper wire is about 13 times heavier. Fiber also is easier to install and requires less duct space.

Applications

Some of the major application areas of optical fibers are:

• Communications — Voice, data, and video transmission are the most common uses of fiber optics, and
these include:
– Telecommunications
– Local area networks (LANs)
– Industrial control systems
– Avionic systems
– Military command, control, and communications systems

• Sensing — Fiber optics can be used to deliver light from a remote source to a detector to obtain pressure,
temperature, or spectral information. The fiber also can be used directly as a transducer to measure a
number of environmental effects, such as strain, pressure, electrical resistance, and pH. Environmental
changes affect the light intensity, phase and/or polarization in ways that can be detected at the other end
of the fiber.

• Power Delivery — Optical fibers can deliver remarkably high levels of power for tasks such as laser
cutting, welding, marking, and drilling.

• Illumination — A bundle of fibers gathered together with a light source at one end can illuminate areas
that are difficult to reach — for example, inside the human body, in conjunction with an endoscope. Also,
they can be used as a display sign or simply as decorative illumination.
Construction

An optical fiber consists of three basic concentric elements: the core,

the cladding, and the outer coating (Figure 1).
The core is usually made of glass or plastic, although other materials
are sometimes used, depending on the transmission spectrum desired.

The core is the light-transmitting portion of the fiber. The cladding Figure 1. An optical fiber consists of
usually is made of the same material as the core, but with a slightly a core, cladding, and coating.
lower index of refraction (usually about 1% lower). This index
difference causes total internal reflection to occur at the index
boundary along the length of the fiber so that the light is transmitted
down the fiber and does not escape through the sidewalls.
The coating usually comprises one or more coats of a plastic
material to protect the fiber from the physical environment.
Sometimes metallic sheaths are added to the coating for further
physical protection.
Figure 2. A beam of light passing from one
Optical fibers usually are specified by their size, given as the outer material to another of a different index of
diameter of the core, cladding, and coating. For example, a refraction is bent or refracted at the
62.5/125/250 would refer to a fiber with a 62.5-µm diam core, a interface.
125-µm diam cladding, and a 0.25-mm diam outer coating.

Principles

Optical materials are characterized by their index of refraction, referred to as n. A material’s index of
refraction is the ratio of the speed of light in a vacuum to the speed of light in the material. When a beam
of light passes from one material to another with a different index of refraction, the beam is bent (or
refracted) at the interface (Figure 2).

Refraction is described by Snell’s law:

where nI and nR are the indices of refraction of the materials

through which the beam is refracted and I and R are the
angles of incidence and refraction of the beam. If the angle
of incidence is greater than the critical angle for the interface
(typically about 82° for optical fibers), the light is reflected
back into the incident medium without loss by a process
known as total internal reflection (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Total internal reflection allows

light to remain inside the core of the fiber.

Modes

When light is guided down a fiber, phase shifts occur at every reflective boundary. There is a finite discrete
number of paths down the optical fiber (known as modes) that produce constructive (in phase and therefore
additive) phase shifts that reinforce the transmission. Because each mode occurs at a different angle to the
fiber axis as the beam travels along the length, each one travels a different length through the fiber from
the input to the output. Only one mode, the zero-order mode, travels the length of the fiber without
reflections from the sidewalls. This is known as a single-mode fiber. The actual number of modes that can
be propagated in a given optical fiber is determined by the wavelength of light and the diameter and index
of refraction of the core of the fiber.
Attenuation

Signals lose strength as they are propagated through the fiber; this is known as beam attenuation.
Attenuation is measured in decibels (dB) with the relation:

where Pin and Pout refer to the optical power going into and coming out of the fiber. The table below shows
the power typically lost in a fiber for several values of attenuation in decibels.

The attenuation of an optical fiber is wavelength dependent. At the extremes of the transmission curve,
multiphoton absorption predominates. Attenuation is usually expressed in dB/km at a specific wavelength.
Typical values range from 10 dB/km for step-index fibers at 850 nm to a few tenths of a dB/km for single-
mode fibers at 1550 nm.

There are several causes of attenuation in an optical fiber:

• Rayleigh Scattering — Microscopic-scale variations in the index of refraction of the core material can
cause considerable scatter in the beam, leading to substantial losses of optical power. Rayleigh scattering
is wavelength dependent and is less significant at longer wavelengths. This is the most important loss
mechanism in modern optical fibers, generally accounting for up to 90% of any loss that is experienced.

• Absorption — Current manufacturing methods have reduced absorption caused by impurities (most
notably water in the fiber) to very low levels. Within the bandpass of transmission of the fiber, absorption
losses are insignificant.

• Bending — Manufacturing methods can produce

minute bends in the fiber geometry. Sometimes these
bends will be great enough to cause the light within the
core to hit the core/cladding interface at less than the
critical angle so that light is lost into the cladding
material. This also can occur when the fiber is bent in a
tight radius (less than, say, a few centimeters). Bend
sensitivity is usually expressed in terms of dB/km loss
for a particular bend radius and wavelength.
Figure 4. Numerical aperture depends on the angle at
Numerical aperture which rays enter the fiber and on the diameter of the fiber’s
Numerical aperture (NA), shown in Figure 4, is the core
measure of maximum angle at which light rays will
enter and be conducted down the fiber. This is
represented by the following equation:

Dispersion

As the optical pulses travel the length of the fiber, they are broadened or lengthened in time. This is called
dispersion. Because the pulses eventually will become so out of step that they begin to overlap each other
and corrupt the data, dispersion sets an upper limit on the data-carrying capabilities of a fiber. There are
three principal causes for this broadening:
• Chromatic Dispersion — Different wavelengths travel at different velocities down the fiber. Because
typical light sources provide power over a series or range of wavelengths, rather than from a single discrete
spectral line, the pulses must spread out along the length of the fiber as they proceed. The high-speed
lasers used in communications have very narrow spectral output specifications, greatly reducing the effect
of chromatic dispersion.

• Modal Dispersion — Different fiber modes reflect at different angles as they proceed down the fiber.
Because each modal angle produces a somewhat different path length for the beam, the higher-order
modes reach the output end of the fiber behind the lower-order modes.

• Waveguide Dispersion — This minor cause for dispersion is due to the geometry of the fiber and results
in different propagation velocities for each of the modes.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth measures the data-carrying capacity of an optical fiber and is expressed as the product of the
data frequency and the distance traveled (MHz-km or GHz-km, typically). For example, a fiber with a
400-MHz-km bandwidth can transmit 400 MHz for a distance of 1 km, or it can transmit 20 MHz of data
for 20 km. The primary limit on bandwidth is pulse broadening, which results from modal and chromatic
dispersion of the fiber. Typical values for different types of fiber follow:

Fiber types

There are basically three types of optical fiber: single-mode,

multimode graded index, and multimode step-index. They are
characterized by the way light travels down the fiber and depend
on both the wavelength of the light and the mechanical geometry
of the fiber. Examples of how they propagate light are shown in
Figure 5.

Single-mode

Only the fundamental zero-order mode is transmitted in a single- Figure 5. Modes of fiber transmission
mode fiber. The light beam travels straight through the fiber with
no reflections from the core-cladding sidewalls at all. Single-mode fiber is characterized by the
wavelength cutoff value, which is dependent on core diameter, NA and wavelength of operation. Below
the cutoff wavelength, higher-order modes may also propagate, which changes the fiber’s characteristics.

Because the single-mode fiber propagates only the fundamental mode, modal dispersion (the primary
cause of pulse overlap) is eliminated. Thus, the bandwidth is much higher with a single-mode fiber than
that of a multimode fiber. This simply means that pulses can be transmitted much closer together in time
without overlap. Because of this higher bandwidth, single-mode fibers are used in all modern long-range
communication systems. Typical core diameters are between 5 and 10 µm.

The actual number of modes that can be propagated through a fiber depends on the core diameter, the
numerical aperture and the wavelength of the light being transmitted. These may be combined into the
normalized frequency parameter or V number,
where a is the core radius, λ is the wavelength, and n is the index of the core and the cladding. The
condition for single-mode operation is that:

Perhaps more important and useful is the cutoff wavelength. This is the wavelength below which the fiber
will allow propagation of multiple modes and can be expressed as:

A fiber is typically chosen with a cutoff wavelength slightly below the desired operating wavelength. For
lasers typically used as sources (with output wavelengths between 850 and 1550 nm), the core diameter
of a single-mode fiber is in the range of 3 to 10 µm.

Multimode graded-index

The core diameters of multimode fibers are much larger than single-mode fibers. As a result, higher-order
modes also are propagated.

The core in a graded-index fiber has an index of refraction that radially decreases continuously from the
center to the cladding interface. As a result, the light travels faster at the edge of the core than in the center.
Different modes travel in curved paths with nearly equal travel times. This greatly reduces modal
dispersion in the fiber.

As a result, graded-index fibers have bandwidths which are significantly greater than step-index fibers,
but still much lower than single-mode fibers. Typical core diameters of graded-index fibers are 50, 62.5,
and 100 µm. The main application for graded-index fibers is in medium-range communications, such as
local area networks

Multimode step-index

The core of a step-index fiber has a uniform index of refraction right up to the cladding interface where
the index changes in a step-like fashion. Because different modes in a step-index fiber travel different path
lengths in their journey through the fiber, data transmission distances must be kept short to avoid
considerable modal dispersion problems. Step-index fibers are available with core diameters of 100 to
1500 µm. They are well suited to applications requiring high power densities, such as medical and
industrial laser power delivery.