Abstract In this module, students will learn the science of optics and apply optic fiber principles to troubleshoot and install optic fiber communication system. The student will also perform testing, maintaining optic fiber communication network while adhering safety and ethics.
1 Introduction An optical fiber (or fibre) is a glass or plastic fiber that carries light along its length. Fiber-optic communication is a method of transmitting information from one place to another by sending light through an optical fiber. Figure 1 below shows the optics communication link from the acquisition of information from the source to the end point.
Figure 1: Optic communication system link
Analog or Digital interface converts the incoming signal to either analog or digital depending on modulation technique used. Voltage to current converter converts input voltage to current which will drive the light source. Light source converts electric energy to light energy. Souce to fiber interface couples the light into the optic fiber. Amplifier amplifies the optical signal to overcome attenuation. Detector converts light energy to electrical energy.
2 Physical descriptions An optical fiber is a thin (2 to 125 µm), flexible medium capable of conducting an optical ray, see figure 2 below. Various glasses and plastics can be used to make optical fibers. Glass optic fibers are manufactured by using Silica SiO3 and those of plastics are made-up of fluorides. An optical fiber cable has a cylindrical shape and consists of three concentric sections: the core, the cladding, and the jacket (see figure 3). The core is the innermost section and consists of one or more very thin strands, or fibers, made of glass or plastic. Fiber can be of glass core and plastic cladding , or glass core and glass cladding, or plastic core and plastic cladding. Each fiber is surrounded by its own cladding, a glass or plastic coating that has optical properties different from those of the core. The outermost layer, surrounding one or a bundle of cladded fibers, is the jacket. The jacket is composed of plastic and other material layered to protect against moisture, abrasion, crushing, and other environmental dangers.
Figure 3: Transverse and cross section view of an optic fiber
3 Advantages of optic fiber over other transmission lines
3.1 Greater capacity The potential bandwidth, and hence data rate, of optical fiber is immense; data rates of 2 Gbps over tens of kilometers have been demonstrated. Compare this capability to the practical maximum of 500Mbps over about 1 km for coaxial cable and just a 4Mbps over 1 km or up to 100 Mbps over a few tens of meters for twisted pair. The usual rate for new optic fiber systems is 2.4 Gbps or even 10 Gbps. This is very high in digital transmission terms. In telephone transmission terms the very best coaxial cable systems give about 2,000 analog voice circuits. A 150 Mbps fibre connection gives just over 2,000 digital telephone (64 Kbps) connections.
3.2 Smaller size and lighter weight
Optical fibers are considerably thinner than coaxial cable or bundled twisted-pair cable-at least an order of magnitude thinner for comparable information-transmission capacity. For cramped conduits in buildings and underground along public rights-of-way, the advantage of small size is considerable. The corresponding reduction in weight reduces structural support requirements. Fibre cable is significantly smaller and lighter than electrical cables to do the same job. In the wide area environment a large coaxial cable system can easily involve a cable of several inches in diameter and weighing many pounds per foot. A fibre cable to do the same job could be less than one half an inch in diameter and weigh a few ounces per foot. This means that the cost of laying the cable is dramatically reduced.
3.3 Electromagnetic isolation
Optical fiber systems are not affected by external electromagnetic fields. Thus, the system is not vulnerable to interference, impulse noise, or crosstalk. By the same token, fibers do not radiate energy, thereby causing little interference with other equipment and thus providing a high degree of security from eavesdropping. In addition, fiber is inherently difficult to tap.
2 Because the connection is not electrical, you can neither pick up nor create electrical interference (the major source of noise). This is one reason that optical communication has so few errors. There are very few sources of things that can distort or interfere with the signal. In a building this means that fibre cables can be placed almost anywhere electrical cables would have problems, (for example near a lift motor or in a cable duct with heavy power cables). In an industrial plant such as a steel mill, this gives much greater flexibility in cabling than previously available. In the wide area networking environment there is much greater flexibility in route selection. Cables may be located near water or power lines without risk to people or equipment.
3.4 Lower attenuation
Attenuation is significantly lower for optical fiber than for coaxial cable or twisted pair and is constant over a wide range.
3.5 Distances between Regenerators
Fewer repeaters means lower cost and fewer sources of error. The performance of optical fiber systems from this point of view has been steadily improving. Coaxial and twisted-pair systems generally have repeaters every few kilometers. As a signal travels along a communication line it loses strength (is attenuated) and picks up noise. The traditional way to regenerate the signal, restoring its power and removing the noise, is to use a either a repeater or an amplifier. In long-line optical transmission cables now in use by the telephone companies, the repeater spacing is typically 40 kilometres. This compares with 12 km for the previous coaxial cable electrical technology. The number of required repeaters and their spacing is a major factor in system cost. Some recently installed systems (1997) have spacings of up to 120 Kilometers.
3.6 Better security
It is possible to tap fibre optical cable. But it is very difficult to do and the additional loss caused by the tap is relatively easy to detect. There is an interruption to service while the tap is inserted and this can alert operational staff to the situation. In addition, there are fewer access points where an intruder can gain the kind of access to a fibre cable necessary to insert a tap. Insertion of active taps where the intruder actually inserts a signal is even more difficult.In the case of coaxial or ethernet, tapping can be done easily with dropping the network, see figure 4 below.
Figure 4: Stripped ethernet wire ready for tapping (https://t.ly/PaoBO/)
3.7 Open Ended Capacity
The maximum theoretical capacity of installed fibre is very great (almost infinite). This means that additional capacity can be had on existing fibres as new technology becomes available. All that must be done is to change the equipment at either end and change or upgrade the regenerators. To get a
3 Figure 5: SEACOM fiber global network
Figure 6: Light refraction
glimpse of the capacity of the fiber network, imagine the capacity of the cable required to carry the data capacity of the whole country. SEACOM has transcontinental submarine cables linking a number of African to other the continents including Tanzania which are connected to Mumbai, India(see figure 5 ).
4 Basic Terms 4.1 Refraction of light As a light ray passes from one medium to another, it changes direction; this phenomenon is called refraction of light(see figure 6). How much that light ray changes its direction depends on the refractive index of the mediums. For example if the ray of light passes from more dense medium to less dense medium it will bend away from the nomal ( imaginary line which is perpendicular to the interface of two medium) and vise verse.
4.2 Refractive Index
Refractive index is the speed of light in a vacuum (abbreviated c, c = 299, 792.458km/second) divided by the speed of light in a material (abbreviated v). Refractive index measures how much a material refracts light. Refractive index of a material, abbreviated as µ , is defined as µ = c/v.
4 Figure 7: Snell’s law
4.3 Snell’s Law
In 1621, a Dutch physicist named Willebrord Snell derived the relationship between the different angles of light as it passes from one transparent medium to another. When light passes from one transparent material to another, it bends according to Snell’s law(see fig 7) which is defined as:
n1 sinθ1 = n2 sinθ2
where: n1 is the refractive index of the medium the light is leaving θ1 is the incident angle between the light beam and the normal (normal is 90° to the interface between two materials) n2 is the refractive index of the material the light is entering θ2 is the refractive angle between the light ray and the normal
For the case of θ1 = 0◦ (i.e., a ray perpendicular to the interface) the solution is θ2 = 0◦ regardless of the values of n1 and n2 . That means a ray entering a medium perpendicular to the surface is never bent. The above is also valid for light going from a dense (higher n) to a less dense (lower n) material; the symmetry of Snell’s law shows that the same ray paths are applicable in opposite direction.
4.4 Total Internal Reflection
When a light ray crosses an interface into a medium with a higher refractive index, it bends towards the normal. Conversely, light traveling cross an interface from a higher refractive index medium to a lower refractive index medium will bend away from the normal. This has an interesting implication: at some angle, known as the critical angle θc , light traveling from a higher refractive index medium to a lower refractive index medium will be refracted at 90◦ ; in other words, refracted along the interface (see figure 8).
If the light hits the interface at any angle larger than this critical angle, it will not pass through to the second medium at all. Instead, all of it will be reflected back into the first medium, a process known as total internal reflection. The critical angle can be calculated from Snell’s law (n1 sinθ1 = n2 sinθ2 ), putting in an angle of 90° for the angle of the refracted ray θ2 .
θ1 = arcsin((n2 /n1 ) ∗ sin θ2 )
since θ2 = 90◦ sin θ2 = 1 then θc = θ1 = arcsin n2 /n1
5 Figure 8: Total internal reflection
For example, with light trying to emerge from glass with n1 = 1.5 into air n2 = 1, the critical angle θc is arcsin (1/1.5), or 41.8◦ . Light from the source at an incidence angle 41.8◦ will be refracted along the air/glass boundary and at an incidence angle greater than the critical angle (41.8◦ ) the light will not be refracted but reflected internally within the source.
For any angle of incidence larger than the critical angle, Snell’s law will not be able to be solved for the angle of refraction, because it will show that the refracted angle has a sine larger than 1, which is not possible. In that case, all the light is totally reflected off the interface, obeying the law of reflection.
4.5 Optical Fiber’s Numerical Aperture (NA)
Multimode optical fiber will only propagate light that enters the fiber within a certain cone, known as the acceptance cone of the fiber. The half-angle of this cone is called the acceptance angle, θ◦ . One
Figure 9: Calculating Numeric Aparture
of the most often quoted characteristics of an optical fibre is its “Numerical Aperture”. The NA is intended as a measure of the light capturing ability of the fibre. However, it is used for many other purposes. For example it may be used as a measure of the amount of loss that we might expect on a bend of a particular radius etc. It is clear that there is a “cone” of acceptance (illustrated in Figure 9). If a ray enters the fibre at an angle within the cone then it will be captured and propagate as a bound mode. If a ray enters the fibre at an angle outside the cone then it will leave the core and eventually leave the fibre itself. The Numerical Aperture is the sine of the largest angle contained within the cone of acceptance. Look- ing at 9, the NA is sin θ◦ , n◦ = 1 . The problem is to find an expression for NA.
sin θ2 = n2 /n1 because θ2 is a critical angle
6 n◦ sin θ◦ = n1 sin θ1 f rom snell′ s law (1)
cos θ1 = sin θ2 = n2 /n1 θ2 + θ1 = 90◦
p sin x = 1 − cos2 x trigonometric identity s p n2 theref ore sin θ1 = 1 − cos2 θ1 = 1 − 22 (2) n1 substitute equation 2 into equation 1 s n2 since n◦ = 1 then sin θ◦ = n1 1 − 22 n1 q theref ore N A = n21 − n22 where n1 = ref ractive index of the core n2 = ref ractive index of the cladding Another useful expression for N A is: N A = n1 sin θ1 . This relates the N A to the Reflactive Index of the core and the maximum angle at which a bound ray may propagate (angle measured from the fibre axis rather than its normal). Typical N A for single-mode fibre is 0.1. For multimode, NA is between 0.2 and 0.3 (usually closer to 0.2).
4.6 The Structure of an Optical Fiber
Typical optical fibers are composed of core, cladding and buffer coating. The core is the inner part of the fiber, which guides light. The cladding surrounds the core completely (see figure 10). The refractive index of the core is higher than that of the cladding, so light in the core that strikes the boundary with the cladding at an angle shallower greater than critical angle will be reflected back into the core by total internal reflection.
Figure 10: Optic fiber structure
For the most common optical glass fiber types, which includes 1550nm single mode fibers and 850nm or 1300nm multimode fibers, the core diameter ranges from 8 ∼ 62.5µm. The most common cladding diameter is 125µm. The material of buffer coating usually is soft or hard plastic such as acrylic, nylon and with diameter ranges from 250µm to 900µm. Buffer coating provides mechanical protection and bending flexibility for the fiber.
7 4.7 Optical Fiber Mode An optical fiber guides light waves in distinct patterns called modes. Mode describes the distribution of light energy across the fiber. The precise patterns depend on the wavelength of light transmitted and on the variation in refractive index that shapes the core. In essence, the variations in refractive index create boundary conditions that shape how light waves travel through the fiber, like the walls of a tunnel affect how sounds echo inside. We can take a look at large-core step-index fibers. Light rays enter the fiber at a range of angles,
Figure 11: Optic Fiber modes
and rays at different angles can all stably travel down the length of the fiber as long as they hit the core-cladding interface at an angle larger than critical angle. These rays are different modes (see figure 11). Fibers that carry more than one mode at a specific light wavelength are called multimode fibers (see figure 11). Some fibers have very small diameter core that they can carry only one mode which travels as a straight line at the center of the core. These fibers are single mode fibers. This is illustrated in the following picture.
4.8 Optical Fiber Index Profile
Index profile is the refractive index distribution across the core and the cladding of a fiber (see figure 12).
Figure 12: Optic fiber index profile
Some optical fiber has a step index profile, in which the core has one uniformly distributed index and the cladding has a lower uniformly distributed index. Other optical fiber has a graded index profile, in which refractive index varies gradually as a function of radial distance from the fiber center. Graded-index profiles include power-law index profiles and parabolic index profiles. The following figure shows some common types of index profiles for single mode and multimode fibers.
