EC801 Optical Fiber Communication: Unit-V WDM Components, Optical Amplifiers and Networks

EC801 Optical Fiber Communication
T.D. Senthilkumar
Department of ECE
Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bangalore
Unit-V
WDM Components, Optical Amplifiers and Networks
(Course (E-)Material)
January 25, 2018

Outline
1 WDM Componets
Dynamic Gain Equalizers
Add/Drop Multiplexer
Polarization Controllers
Dispersion Compensators
Tunable Light Sources
2 Optical Amplifiers
Types and Basic Operation
Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers
Erboum Doped Fiber Amplifiers
3 Optical Networks
SONET/SDH frames
SONET/SDH Rings
T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 2 / 62

WDM Componets
Dynamic Gain Equalizers
Figure: Dynamic Gain Equalizer

WDM Componets Dynamic Gain Equalizers
Dynamic Gain Equalizers (contd..,)
ú It is used to reduce the attenuation of the individual wavelengths within a

spectral band
ú These devices also are called dynamic channel equalizers or dynamic spec-
tral equalizers
ú Its function is equivalent to filtering out individual wavelengths and equal-
izing them on a channel-by-channel basis
ú Their applications include
flattening the nonlinear gain profile of an optical amplifier
compensation for variation in transmission losses on individual chan-
nels
attenuating, adding, or dropping selective wavelengths



WDM Componets Add/Drop Multiplexer
Optical add/drop Multiplexers (OADM)
ú The function of an OADM is to insert or extract one or more selected

wavelengths at a designated point in an optical network
ú Figure shows OADM configuration with four input and four output ports
ú Add-and-drop functions are controlled by MEMS based miniature mirrors
that are activated selectively to connect the desired fiber paths
ú When no mirrors are activated, each incoming channel passes through the
switch to the output port

Optical add/drop Multiplexers (contd..,)
ú Incoming signals can be dropped from the traffic flow by activating the
appropriate mirror pair
ú When an optical signal is dropped, another path is established simultane-
ously allowing a new signal to be added to the traffic flow
ú The operation is independent of wavelength, data rate, and signal format

Figure: Optical add/drop Multiplexers

Figure: Optical add/drop Multiplexers

WDM Componets Polarization Controllers
Polarization Controllers
ú It offers high-speed real time polarization control in a closed-loop system

that induces a polarization sensor and control logic
ú These devices dynamically adjust any incoming state of polarization to an
arbitrary output state of polarization
ú This is done through electronic control voltage that are applied indepen-
dently to adjustable polarization-retardation plates
ú Applications polarization controllers include:
1. polarization mode dispersion compensation
2. polarization scrambling
3. polarization multiplexing

WDM Componets Dispersion Compensators
Chromatic Dispersion Compensators
ú Chromatic dispersion causes pulse broadening to increased bit error rate

in optical link operating above 2.5 Gb/s (Dispersion compensating fiber is
used)
ú the fine tuning can be carried out by means of a tunable dispersion com-
pensator that works over a narrow spectral band (Dispersion compensating
module)
ú One method of achieving dynamic chromatic dispersion is through the use
of a chirped fiber Bragg grating

Chromatic Dispersion Compensators (contd..,)
Figure: Chromatic Dispersion Compensators

Chromatic Dispersion Compensators (contd..,)
ú The grating spacing varies linearly over the length of the grating which
creates chirped grating
ú This results in a range of wavelengths that satisfy the Bragg condition for
reflection
ú The spacing decreases along the fiber which means that the Bragg wave-
length decreases with distance along the grating length
ú The shorter wavelength components of a pulse travel farther into the fiber
before being reflected
ú they experience more delay in going through the grating than the longer
wavelength components
ú The relative delays induced by the grating on the different frequency com-
ponents of the pulse are the opposite of the delays caused by the fiber

WDM Componets Tunable Light Sources
Tunable Light Sources
ú Many different laser designs have been proposed to generate the spectrum
of wavelengths needed for DWDM networks
ú individual light sources which operates at different wavelength→ expensive
method
ú carefully controlled and monitored → their wavelength do not drift with
time and temperature into the spectral region of adjacent sources
ú Tunable laser → change the cavity length in which the lasing occurs in
order to have the device emit at different wavelengths

Tunable Light Sources (contd..,)
ú The basic tuning operations include the following:

wavelength tuning of a laser by means of temperature or current vari-
ations
use of multiple-section laser or an external cavity laser
frequency locking to a particular mode in a Fabry-Perot laser
spectral slicing by means of a fixed or tunable narrow-band optical
filter and a broadband LED
ú These devices are based on DFB or DBR structures which have a waveguide
type grating filter in the lasing cavity
ú Frequency tuning is achieved by changing the temperature of the device or
by altering the injection current into the active section or passive section

ú In the second method, change in the refractive index causes a shift in a

peak output wavelength
ú External cavity laser designs include the use of Littman and Littrow cavities
ú Litman cavity scheme uses a grating and a MEMS based tuning mirror to
deliver a high level of side mode suppression with narrow linewidth
ú Litrow cavity method uses a grating to offer an increase in optical output
power but with a slight reduction in side mode suppression

ú Spectral slicing is used in which a broad spectral output is sliced by the

waveguide grating to produce a comb of precisely spaced optical frequencies
ú these spectral slices are then fed into a sequence of individually addressable
wavelength channels that can be externally modulated

Figure: Relationship between tuning range, channel spacing, and source spectral
width

Optical Amplifiers
Optical Amplifiers
In short distance metro and access network links, the traffic patterns can be
bursty and wavelengths can often be added or dropped depending on customers
demand for service. Optical amplifiers for these applications need to be able to
recover quickly from rapid input power variations

Optical Amplifiers
Optical Amplifiers (contd..,)
Figure: Applications of optical amplifiers

Optical Amplifiers
1. In-line Optical Amplifiers

I In a single mode link, the effects of dispersion may be small so that the main
limitation to repeater spacing is attenuation
I Such a link does not require a complete regeneration of the signals, simple
amplification of the optical signal is sufficient
I In-line optical amplifiers can be used to compensate for transmission loss
and increase the distance between regenerative repeaters

Optical Amplifiers
2. Preamplifiers
I Front-end preamplifier for an optical receiver
I A weak optical signal is amplified before photodetection so that the SNR
degradation caused by thermal noise in the receiver electronics can be sup-
pressed
I compared with avalanche photodiodes, an optical preamplifier provides a
larger gain factor and a broader bandwidth

Optical Amplifiers
3. Power Amplifier
I Applications include placing the device immediately after an optical trans-
mitter to boost the transmitted power
I This increases the transmission distance by 10-100 km depending on the
amplifier gain and fiber loss
I using this together with an optical preamplifier at the receiving end can
enable repeater-less undersea transmission distance of 200-250 km
I This can be employed in a local area network to compensate for coupler-
insertion loss and power splitting loss

Optical Amplifiers Types and Basic Operation
Amplifier Types and Basic operation
1. Semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA)

2. Active fiber or doped fiber amplifiers (DFA)
3. Raman amplifiers

Basic operation
ú In SOAs and DFAs, the mechanism to create the population inversion, is

the same as is used in laser diode
ú Unlike laser diode it does not have the optical feedback mechanism that is
necessary for lasing to take place
ú An optical amplifier can boost incoming signal levels, but it cannot generate
a coherent optical output by itself

Basic operation (contd..,)
Figure: Basic operation of optical amplifiers

ú The pump supplies energy to electrons in an active medium, which raises

them to higher energy levels to produce a population inversion
ú An incoming signal photon will trigger these excited electrons to drop to
lower levels through a stimulated emission
ú Since one incoming trigger photon stimulates many excited electrons to
emit photons of equal energy as they drop to the ground state, the result
is an amplified optical signal

Raman amplification mechanism

ú In Raman amplification mechanism, there is a transfer of optical power from
a high power pump wavelength to information signals at longer wavelengths
ú This is done without the need for a population inversion process
ú A Raman optical amplifier is based on a nonlinear effect called stimulate
Raman scattering (SRS), which occurs in fibers at high optical powers
ú Raman amplification takes place within a standard transmission fiber,
whereas a DFA requires a specially constructed optical fiber for its op-
eration

Raman amplification mechanism

ú The Raman gain mechanism can be achieved through either a discrete
amplifier or a distributed amplifier
ú In the discrete Raman amplifier configuration, a spool of about 80 m of
small core fiber along with appropriate pump lasers is inserted into the
transmission path as a distinct packaged unit
ú For the distributed Raman amplifier application, one or more Raman pump
lasers convert the final 20 to 40 km of the transmission fiber into a pream-
plifier
ú Since the Raman gain in a particular spectral range is derived from the
SRS-induced transfer of optical power from shorter pump wavelengths to
longer signal wavelengths, these amplifiers can be designed for use in any
wavelength band

Optical Amplifiers Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers
Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers
ú Analogous to the construction of a laser diode

ú In contrast to the laser feedback mechanism, the optical signal travels
through the device (lasing cavity) only once
ú During this single passage the signal gains energy and emerges intensified
at the other end of the amplifier

Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers (contd..,)
External pumping
ú External current injection is the pumping method for having gain mecha-
nism in SOAs
ú The rate equation that governs the carrier density n(t) in the excited state
∂n(t) n(t)
= Rp (t) − Rst (t) −
∂t τr
J(t)
Rp (t) =
qd
is the external pumping rate from the injection current density J(t) into an
active layer of thickness d, τr is the combined time constant coming from
spontaneous emission and carrier recombination mechanisms

External pumping (contd..,)
Rst (t) = Γavg (n − nth )Nph = gvg Nph
where
vg → group velocity of the incident light
Γ → optical confinement factor
a → gain constant
nth → threshold carrier density
Nph → photon density
g → overall gain per unit length
The photon density

Ps
Nph =
vg (hν)(wd)


In the steady state,
∂n(t)
=0
∂t
n
Rp = Rst +
τr
J n
= Γavg (n − nth )Nph +
qd τr
J n
= Γvg Nph +
qd τr
after simplifying for gain g
J/qd − nth /τr g0

g= =
vg Nph + 1/Γaτr 1 + Nph /Nph,sat

where
1
Nph,sat = is defined as the saturation photon density, and
Γavg τr

g0 = Γaτr qd J
− nτth
r
is the medium gain per unit length in the absence of
signal input, which is called the zero-signal or small signal gain per unit length

Amplifier Gain
Signal gain or amplifier gain is defined as
Ps,out
G=
Ps,in
G = exp [Γ(gm − ᾱ)L] = exp[g(z)L]

g(z) → overall gain per unit length
g0
g(z) =
1 + Ps (z)/Pamp,sat
Pamp,sat is the amplifier saturation power, which is defined as the internal power
level at which the gain per unit length has been halved

Amplifier Gain (contd..,)

Given that G(z) is the gain per unit length, in an incremental length dz the
light power increased by
dp = g(z)Ps (z)dz

g0
dp = Ps (z)dz
1 + Ps (z)/Pamp,sat

1 1
g0 (z)dz = + dp
Ps (z) Pamp,sat
Z L Z Ps,out
1 1
g0 (z) dz = + dp
0 Ps,in Ps (z) Pamp,sat

Amplifier Gain (contd..,)

Defining the single pass gain in the absence of light to be G0 = exp(g0 L)

Pamp,sat G0 G − 1 Ps,out
G=1+ ln = G0 exp −
Ps,in G G Pamp,sat

Optical Amplifiers Erboum Doped Fiber Amplifiers
Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers
ú The active medium is an optical fiber amplifier consists of a nominally 10

to 30 m length of optical fiber that has been lightly doped
ú The host fiber material can be standard silica, a fluride based glass, or a
tellurite glass
ú The operating regions of these devices depend on the host material and the
doping elements

Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers (contd..,)
Amplification Mechanism
ú optical fiber amplifiers use optical pumping in which photons are used to
raise electrons into excited states (external current injection in SOAs)
ú The optical pumping process require the use of three energy levels
ú After reaching its excited state, the electron must release some of its energy
and drop to the desired lasing level
ú From this level, a signal photon can then trigger the excited electron into
stimulated emission whereby electron releases its energy in the form of a
new photon with a wavelength identical to that of the signal photon
ú Since the pump photon must have a higher energy than the signal photon,
the pump wavelength is shorter the signal wavelength

Figure: Energy level diagram

Amplification Mechanism (contd..,)

ú Figure shows a simplified energy level diagram and various energy level
transition processes of these ER3+ ions in silica glass
ú Two principal levels are metastable level and the pump level
ú Metastable means that the lifetime for transition from this state to the
ground state are very long compared with the lifetime of the states that
led to this level
ú Possible pump wavelengths are 1530 nm to 1600 nm
ú In this operation, a pump laser emitting 980 nm photons is used to excite
ions from the ground state to the pump level


ú These excited ions decay very quickly from the pump band to the metastable
band
ú During this decay, the excess energy is released as phonons or equivalently,
mechanical vibration in the fiber
ú Within the metastable band, the electrons of the excited ions tend to pop-
ulate the lower end of the band
ú Another possible pump wavelength is 1480 nm
ú The energy of these pump photons is very similar to the signal photon
energy, but slightly higher
ú The absorption of a 1480 nm pump photon excites an electron from the
ground state directly to the lightly populated top of the metastable level


ú These electrons then tend to move down to the more populated lower end
of the metastable level
ú Some of the ions in the metastable level can decay back to the ground
state in the absence of an externally stimulation photon flux (spontaneous
emission)
ú Small portion of the external photons will be absorbed by ions in the ground
state, which raises these ions to the metastable level
ú in the stimulated emission process, a signal photon triggers an excited ion
to drop to the ground state, thereby emitting a new photon of the same
energy
ú The widths of the metastable and ground state levels allow high levels od
stimulated emissions to occur in te 1530 nm to 1560 nm range

EDFA Architecture
ú The pump,light is usually injected from the same direction as the signal
flow (codirectional pumping)
ú It is also possible to inject the pump power in the opposite direction to the
signal flow (counter-directional pumping)
ú Counter-pumping allows higher gains, but codirectional pumping gives bet-
ter noise performance
ú Pumping at 980 nm is preferred, since it produces less noise and achieves
larger population inversions than pumping at 1480 nm

EDFA Architecture (contd..,)
Figure: Configurations of an EDFA

EDFA Power Conversion Efficiency and Gain
ú the reduction of gain in an EDFA occurs when the population inversion is

reduced significantly by a large signal
ú The input and output powers of an EDFA can be expressed in terms of the
principle of energy conservation
λp
Ps,out ≤ Ps,in + Pp,in
λs
where Pp,in is the input pump power, and λp and λs are the pump and
signal wavelengths, respectively
ú The amount of signal energy that can be extracted from an EDFA cannot
exceed the pump energy that is stored in the device
ú The inequality in the equation reflects the possibility of pump photons lost
due to various causes or pump energy lost due to spontaneous emission


(contd..,)
ú The power conversion efficiency (PCE) is defined as
Ps,out − Ps,in Ps,out λp

P CE = ≈ ≤ ≤1
Pp,in Pp,in λs
The maximum theoretical value of the PCE is λp /λs

ú The quantum conversion efficiency (QCE which is wavelength-independent
and is defined by
λs
QCE = P CE
λp
The maximum value of QCE is unity, in which case all the pump photons
are converted to signal photons


(contd..,)
ú The amplifier gain , under the assumption of there is no spontaneous emis-

sion, can be written as
Ps,out λp Pp,in
G= ≤1+
Ps,in λs Ps,in
This allows an important relationship between signal input power and gain
ú To achieve a specific maximum gain G, the input signal power cannot
exceed a value given by
(λp /λs ) pp,in

Ps,in ≤
G−1

SONET/SDH
With the advent of fiber optic transmission lines, the next step in the evolution
of the digital time-division-multiplexing (TDM) was a standard format called
synchronous optical network (SONET) in North America and synchronous dig-
ital hierarchy (SDH) in the other parts of the world

Optical Networks SONET/SDH frames
SONET/SDH
Transmission Formats and Speeds

ú SONET frame consists of 90 columns by 9 rows of bytes
ú In SONET terminology, a section connects adjacent pieces of equipment,
a line is longer link that connects two SONET devices and a path is a
complete end-to-end connection
ú The fundamental SONET frame has a 125 − µ s duration
ú The transmission bit rate of the basic SONET signal is
STS-1=(90 bytes/row)(9 rows/frame)(8 bits/byte)/(125 µs/frame)
=51.84 Mb/s
This is called an STS-1 signal, where STS stands for synchronous transport signal
ú All other SONET signals are integer multiples of this rate

SONET/SDH (contd..,)
Figure: Basic structure of an STS-1 SONET frame

Figure: SONET layers

Figure: Basic structure of an STS-N SONET frame

SONET/SDH
Transmission Formats and Speeds (contd..,)

ú When an STS-N signal is used to modulate an optical source, the logical
STS-N signal is first scrambled to avoid long strings of ones and zeros
ú After undergoing electrical-to-optical conversion , the resultant physical
layer optical signal is called OC-N
ú In SDH the basic rate is equivalent to STS-3, which is called as synchronous
transport module-level 1 (STM-1)
ú compatibility between SONET and SDH-N → N is multiple of three
ú In contrast to SONET, SDH does not distinguish between a logical electrical
signal and an optical signal, so that both signal types are designated by
STM-N

Optical Networks SONET/SDH Rings
SONET/SDH Rings
ú SONET/SDH rings are commonly called self-healing rings

ú The traffic flowing along a certain path can automatically be switched to
an alternate or standby path following failure or degradation of the link
segment
ú Three main features with SONET/SDH rings as follows:
1. unidirectional ring
2. bidirectional ring
3. line switched or path switched ring

SONET/SDH Rings (contd..,)
ú Unidirectional Ring
The operating signals can travel clockwise only
ú Bidirectional Ring
The operating signals can travel both direction around the ring
Protection switching can be performed either via a line-switching or a
path-switching
ú Upon link failure or degradation, line switching moves all signal channels
of an entire OC-N channel to a protection fiber
ú Path switching can move individual payload channels within an OC-N chan-
nel to another path

Figure: Two-fiber unidirectional path-switched ring with a counter-rotating

protection path

Figure: Flow of primary and protection traffic from node 1 to node 3

Figure: Four-fiber bidirectional line-switched ring (BLSR)

Figure: Reconfiguration of a Four-fiber BLSR under transceiver or line failure

Figure: Reconfiguration of a Four-fiber BLSR under node or fiber cable failure

EC801 Optical Fiber Communication: Unit-V WDM Components, Optical Amplifiers and Networks

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

EC801 Optical Fiber Communication: Unit-V WDM Components, Optical Amplifiers and Networks

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

EC801 Optical Fiber Communication

January 25, 2018

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 2 / 62

Dynamic Gain Equalizers

Figure: Dynamic Gain Equalizer

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 3 / 62

Dynamic Gain Equalizers (contd..,)

ú It is used to reduce the attenuation of the individual wavelengths within a

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 4 / 62

Dynamic Gain Equalizers (contd..,)

Figure: Dynamic Gain Equalizer

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 5 / 62

Dynamic Gain Equalizers (contd..,)

Figure: Dynamic Gain Equalizer

Optical add/drop Multiplexers (OADM)

ú The function of an OADM is to insert or extract one or more selected

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 7 / 62

Optical add/drop Multiplexers (contd..,)

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 8 / 62

Optical add/drop Multiplexers (contd..,)

Figure: Optical add/drop Multiplexers

Optical add/drop Multiplexers (contd..,)

Figure: Optical add/drop Multiplexers

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 10 / 62

ú It offers high-speed real time polarization control in a closed-loop system

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 11 / 62

Chromatic Dispersion Compensators

ú Chromatic dispersion causes pulse broadening to increased bit error rate

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 12 / 62

Chromatic Dispersion Compensators (contd..,)

Figure: Chromatic Dispersion Compensators

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 13 / 62

Chromatic Dispersion Compensators (contd..,)

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 14 / 62

Tunable Light Sources

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 15 / 62

Tunable Light Sources (contd..,)

ú The basic tuning operations include the following:

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 16 / 62

Tunable Light Sources (contd..,)

ú In the second method, change in the refractive index causes a shift in a

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 17 / 62

Tunable Light Sources (contd..,)

ú Spectral slicing is used in which a broad spectral output is sliced by the

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 18 / 62

Tunable Light Sources (contd..,)

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 19 / 62

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 20 / 62

Optical Amplifiers (contd..,)

Figure: Applications of optical amplifiers

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 21 / 62

Optical Amplifiers (contd..,)

1. In-line Optical Amplifiers

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 22 / 62

Optical Amplifiers (contd..,)

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 23 / 62

Optical Amplifiers (contd..,)

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 24 / 62

Amplifier Types and Basic operation

1. Semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA)

T.D. Senthilkumar EC801 OFC course material January 25, 2018 25 / 62

ú In SOAs and DFAs, the mechanism to create the population inversion, is