1. Discuss the operational principle of WDM.

Figure 1.1: Typical WDM network

• Figure 1.1 represents a typical WDM network with various passive/active components and various
types of amplifiers.
• The implementation of WDM networks requires a variety of passive and active devices to combine,
distribute, isolate and amplify optical power at different wavelengths.
• Passive devices require no external control for their operation, so they are limited in their
applications. They are mainly used to split, combine or tap off optical signals.
• Active devices can be controlled electronically, providing a large degree of network flexibility.
• At the transmitting end there are several independently modulated light sources, each emitting
signals at a unique wavelength.
• A multiplexer is needed to combine the optical outputs into a continuous spectrum of signals and
couple them onto a single fiber.
• At the receiving end a demultiplexer is required to separate the optical signals into appropriate
detection channels for signal processing.
• There are 3 types of amplifiers: Postamplifier, In-line amplifier and Preamplifier.
2. Explain the operational concept of optical isolators.

Left Input

Fiber Fiber

Fiber Right input

Figure 2.1: O
Fiber

Figure 2.1: Optical Isolator

• Optical isolators are devices that allow light to pass through them in only one direction which is
important to prevent scattered or reflected light from travelling in the reverse direction.
• A common application of optical isolator is to keep backward travelling light from entering the
optical source and prevent instabilities in optical output.
• Figure 2.1 shows an optical isolator made of three miniature optical components. The core of the
device consists of 45o Farady rotator that is placed between two wedge shaped birefringent plates
or walk-off polarizers made up of TiO2 or YVO4.
• Light travelling in the forward direction (left to right) is separated into ordinary and extra ordinary
rays by the first birefringent plate. The Faraday rotator rotates the polarization plane of each ray by
45o. After exiting the Faraday rotator the two rays pass through the second birefringent plate.
• The axis of this plate is oriented in a way to maintain the relationship between the two types of
rays. Thus when they exit the polarizer they are both refracted in an identical parallel direction.
• Going in the reverse direction (right to left), the relationship of the two rays is reversed when exiting
the Faraday rotator due to non-reciprocity of Faraday rotation. The rays diverge when they exit the
left-hand birefringent plate and are not coupled to the fiber anymore.
3. Explain the operational concept of optical circulators.

A A
Port 1 Port 2

C B

C B

Port 3

Figure 3.1: Optical Circulator

• Figure 3.1 represents a 3 port optical circulator.

• It is a non-reciprocal multi-port passive device that directs light sequentially from port to port in only
one direction.
• This device is used in optical amplifiers; add/drop multiplexers and dispersion compensator
modules.
• Its operation is similar to that of an isolator except that its construction is more complex.
• It consists of a number of walk-off polarizers, half-wave plates and Faraday rotators with 3 to 4
ports.
• Here an input on port 1 is sent out on port 2, an input on port 2 is sent out on port 3 and an input on
port 3 is sent out on port 1.
• In a 4 port circulator there are 4 inputs and 4 outputs to form a symmetrical circulator.
• These devices have low insertion loss, high isolation over a wide wavelength range and low
polarization dependent loss.
4. Discuss how a dielectric thin film filter operates as an optical band pass filter.

Reflecting facets

Incident light signal

Transmitted waves add in phase

Reflections in the
Fabry-Perot cavity

Figure 4.1: Dielectric thin film filter or etalon

• A dielectric thin film filter (TFF) used as an optical BPF is as shown in Figure 4.1 which allows a
narrow wavelength band to pass straight through it and reflects others.
• The device is based on a Fabry-Perot filter structure, which is a cavity formed by two parallel highly
reflective mirror surfaces and this is called as a Fabry-Perot interferometer or an etalon. It is also
known as a thin-film resonant cavity filter.
• Consider a light signal that is incident on the left surface of the etalon. After the light passes
through the cavity and hits the inside surface on the right, some of the light leaves the cavity and
some is reflected.
• The amount of light reflected depends on the reflectivity R of the surface. If the round trip distance
between the two mirrors is an integral multiple of a wavelength λ, then all light at those wavelength
which pass through the right facet add in phase.
• This means that these wavelengths interfere constructively in the device output beam so they add
in intensity. These wavelengths are called as resonant wavelengths of the cavity. All other
wavelengths are rejected by the etalon. Hence etalon functions as BPF.
5. Explain the working of MZI.

Figure 5.1: Layout of a basic 2x2 MZI

• Figure 5.1 represents a 2x2 Mach-Zehnder Interferometer Multiplexer or MZI.

• It consists of 3 stages; an initial 3 dB directional coupler which splits the input signals, a central
section where one of the waveguides is longer by L to give a wavelength dependent phase shift
between the two arms, and another 3 dB coupler which recombines the signals at the output.
• The function of this arrangement is that, by splitting the input beam and introducing a phase shift in
one of the paths, the recombined signals will interfere constructively at one output and destructively
at the other.
• The signals then finally emerge from only one output port.

6. Explain the MEMS technology.

a) V=0 “OFF” b) V>0 “ON”

Figure 6.1: MEMS actuation method

 • MEM is the acronym for micro electro-mechanical systems. They are miniature devices that combine
mechanical, electrical and optical components to provide sensing and actuation functions.
• The control or actuation of a MEMS device is done through electrical, thermal or magnetic means
such as micro gears, movable levers, shutters or mirrors.
• The devices are used widely in automobile air-bag deployment, ink-jet printers, monitoring patients
on pacemakers in bio-medical applications etc.
• Figure 6.1 shows a simple example of a MEMS actuation method. At the top of the device there is a
thin suspended polysilicon beam with typical length, width and thickness of 80µm, 10µm and 0.5µm
respectively.
• At the bottom there is a silicon ground plane covered by an insulator material. There is a gap of
nominally 0.6µm between the beam and the insulator.
• When a voltage is applied between silicon ground plane and polysilicon beam, the electric force pulls
the beam down so that it makes contact with the lower structure. This illustrates a simple example of
a MEMS actuation method where the a) shows an off position and b) shows an on position.

7. Discuss the working of variable optical attenuators (VOA).

• Precise active signal level control is essential for proper operation of DWDM networks. In order to
have the same gain level certain channels need to be blanked out or span balancing needs to be
done to ensure same signal strengths at a user location.
• A VOA offers such dynamic signal level control as it attenuates optical power by various means to
control signal levels precisely without disturbing other properties of a light signal.
• The control methods include mechanical, thermo-optic, MEMS, electro-optic techniques. Mechanical
control methods are reliable but have a low dynamic range and a slow response time. Thermo-optic
methods have a high dynamic range, but are slow and require use of thermo-electric cooler.
• The two most popular control methods are MEMS based and electro-optic based techniques. When
wavelengths are added, dropped or routed in a WDM system, VOA can manage the arising optical
fluctuations.
8. Explain the operation of tunable optical filters.

Figure 8.1: Three methods to adjust wavelength of tunable Bragg grating

•
• The two technologies used for tunable filters are MEMS based and Bragg-grating based device.
MEMS actuated filters have a wide tuning range and design flexibility. They consist of two sets of
epitaxially grown semiconductor layers that form a single Fabry-Perot cavity.
• The device operation is based on allowing one of the two mirrors to be moved precisely by an
actuator which enables a change in the distance between the two cavity mirrors, resulting in selection
of different wavelengths to be filtered.
• The filters based on Bragg gratings involve a stretching and relaxation process of the spacing in the
fiber grating, which is periodic variation in refractive index RI along the core. Glass is a stretchable
medium hence an optical fiber is stretched with the grating inside it, so that spacing changes and
accordingly RI will change.
 • The stretching can be done by thermo-mechanical, piezoelectric or stepper motor means as shown in
Figure 8.1. Thermo-mechanical methods use a bimetal differential expansion element which changes
shape with temperature. In the figure high expansion bar changes length more with temperature than
the low expansion frame, leading to spacing changes in the gratings. This method is cheap but slow.
• The piezoelectric technique uses a material that changes length when voltage is applied. This
method is costly, complex to implement, has a limited tuning range but gives precise wavelength
resolution.
• The stepper motor method changes fiber grating length by pulling or relaxing one end of the
structure. It has a moderate cost, is reliable and has reasonable tuning speed.

9. Explain how a dynamic gain equalizer (DGE) equalizes a non-linear gain profile.

Figure 9.1: DGE equalizing the gain profile of an EDFA

• It is used to reduce attenuation of individual wavelengths within a spectral band. Its function is
equivalent to filtering out individual wavelengths and equalizing them on a channel-by-channel basis.
• Their applications include flattening non-linear gain profile of optical amplifier, compensation for
variation in transmission losses on individual channels across a given spectral band, attenuating,
adding or dropping selective wavelengths.
• These devices operate by having individually tunable attenuators, such as series of VOAs, control
the gain of a small spectral segment across a wide spectral band. Figure 9.1 shows how a DGE
equalizes gain profile of an EDFA.
• The operation of these devices can be controlled electronically and configured by software residing in
a microprocessor. This control is based on feedback information received from a performance
monitoring card that provides the parameter values needed to adapt and adjust to required link
specifications.
• This allows high degree of agility in responding to optical power fluctuations resulting from variations
in network conditions.
10. Discuss how an optical add/drop multiplexer add and drops wavelengths.

Figure 10.1: 4x4 OADM

• Its function is to insert (add) or extract (drop) one or more selected wavelengths at a designated point
in an optical network. Figure 10.1 shows an OADM with 4 input and 4 output ports.
• Here, the add and drop functions are controlled by MEMS based miniature mirrors that are activated
selectively to connect the desired fiber paths.
• When no mirrors are activated, each incoming channel passes through the switch to the output port.
Incoming signals can be dropped from the traffic flow by activating the appropriate mirror pair.
• For example to have the signal carried on wavelength λ3 entering port 3 be dropped to port 2D, the
mirrors are activated as shown in the figure above.
• When an optical signal is dropped, another path is established simultaneously allowing a new signal
to be added from port 2A to the traffic flow. The operation is independent of wavelength, data rate
and signal format.

11. Explain how a polarization controller works.

• It offers high speed real-time polarization control in a closed loop system that includes polarization
sensor and control logic.
• These devices dynamically adjust any incoming state of polarization to an arbitrary output state of
polarization.
 • For example the output could be a fixed linearly polarized state. Nominally this is done through
electronic control voltages that are applied independently to adjustable polarization retardation
plates.
• Applications include polarization mode dispersion compensation, polarization scrambling and
multiplexing.

12. Explain how a chromatic dispersion compensator compensates dispersion in optical fibers.

Figure 12.1: Chromatic dispersion compensator

• Chromatic dispersion causes pulse broadening which leads to increased bit error rates, hence it is
necessary to compensate for fiber dispersion effects.
• A dispersion compensating module is used for this purpose which can be tuned manually by a
network technician, remotely using network management software or dynamically by the module
itself without any human intervention.
• Dynamic chromatic dispersion compensation can be achieved by using chirped fiber Bragg grating
(FBG) as shown in figure 12.1 where the grating spacing varies linearly over the length of the grating,
which creates a chirped grating. This results in a range of wavelengths that satisfy the Bragg
condition for reflection.
• In the configuration shown above spacing decreases along the fiber which means that the Bragg
wavelength decreases with distance along the grating length. Shorter wavelength components of a
pulse travel farther into the fiber before being reflected.
• Hence they experience more delay in going through the grating than the longer wavelength
components. The relative delays induced by the grating on the different frequency components of the
pulse are the opposite of the delays caused by the fiber. This results in dispersion compensation as it
compresses the pulse.
13. Discuss operation of tunable light sources.
• The fundamental concept to make a tunable laser is to change the cavity length in which lasing
occurs in order to have the device emit at different wavelengths.
• The basic tuning options are:
➢ Wavelength tuning of a laser by means of temperature or current variations
➢ Use of multiple section laser or an external cavity laser
➢ Frequency locking to a particular lasing mode in a Fabry-Perot laser
➢ Spectral slicing with tunable optical filter and LED
• Frequency tuning is achieved by changing temperature of the device or by altering injection current.
Wavelength changes by 0.1nm/0C or by 0.008-0.04 nm/mA or 1 to 5 GHz/mA.. Current variation is
used as it yields a better tuning range.
• External cavity laser designs include use of Littman and Littrow cavities. The Littman cavity uses a
grating and MEMS based tuning mirror to deliver high side-mode suppression and narrow line width.
• The Littrow cavity uses a grating to offer an increase in optical output power and slight side-mode
suppression. In both devices coarse tuning is achieved by manual adjustments of adjuster and fine
tuning by piezoelectric actuator.
• In spectral slicing, a broad spectral output is spectrally sliced by the waveguide grating to produce a
comb of precisely spaced optical frequencies, which become an array of constant output sources
which are then suitably modulated.

14. Discuss the basic applications and type of optical amplifiers.

Figure 14.1: Four applications of optical amplifiers

 • Optical amplifier applications include ultra-long undersea links to short links in access networks, long
distance underground and terrestrial point-to-point links etc.
• Figure 14.1 shows general applications of the following classes of optical amplifiers.
• In-line optical amplifiers: In a single mode link the effects of fiber dispersion may be small so that
fiber attenuation is a dominant factor. Such a link does not need complete regeneration of signal,
simple amplification is sufficient. An in-line amplifier compensates for transmission loss and
increases distance between regenerative repeaters as shown in figure 14.1 a).
• Preamplifier: Figure 14.1 b) shows a front-end preamplifier for an optical receiver where a weak
optical signal is amplified before photo detection in order to suppress SNR degradation. It also
provides a larger gain factor and broader band width.
• Power amplifier: Figure 14.1 c) shows a power amplifier placed immediately after an optical
transmitter to boost transmitted power. This increases transmission distance by 10-100 km
depending on the amplifier gain and fiber loss. We can also employ an optical amplifier in a LAN as a
booster to compensate for coupler insertion loss and power splitting loss. Figure 14.1 d) shows an
example for boosting the optical signal in front of a passive star coupler.

15. Explain the amplification mechanism of an EDFA.

Figure 15.1: Simplified energy-level diagram and transition processes of Er3+ ions in silica
• Optical amplifiers use optical pumping where one uses photons to directly raise electrons into excited
states. This process requires use of 3 energy levels. The top level to which electron is elevated must
lie energetically above the desired lasing level. After reaching its excited state electron must release
some of its energy and drop to the desired lasing level.
• From this level, a signal photon can then trigger the excited electron into stimulated emission
whereby the electron releases its remaining energy in the form of a new photon with a wavelength
identical to that of signal photon. Since the pump photon must have a higher energy than the signal
photon, pump wavelength is shorter than the signal wavelength.
• To understand working of EDFA, we need to look at energy level structure of erbium. The erbium
atoms in silica are Er3+ ions, which are erbium atoms that have lost three of their outer electrons.
• Figure 15.1 shows a simplified energy level diagram and various energy level transitions of Er3+ ions
in silica glass. The 2 principal levels are metastable level and pump level.
• In normal operation a pump laser emitting 980 nm photons is used to excite ions from the ground
state to the pump level as shown by transition process 1. These excited ions decay very quickly from
the pump band to metastable band as shown in transition process 2.
• During this decay, the excess energy is released as phonons or equivalently mechanical vibrations in
the fiber. Within the metastable band, the electrons of the excited ions tend to populate the lower end
of the band with long fluorescence times of 10ms.
• Another possible pump wavelength is 1480 nm. The energy of these pump photons is very similar to
the signal photon energy, but slightly higher. 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, as shown
in transition process 3.
• These electrons then tend to move down to the more populated lower end of the metastable level as
shown in transition process 4. Some of the ions sitting at the metastable level can decay back to the
ground state in the absence of an externally stimulating photon flux, as shown by transition process
5. This is known as spontaneous emission and adds to amplifier noise.
• Apart from all the above, a small portion of the external photons will be absorbed by the ions in the
ground state, which raises these ions to metastable level, as shown by transition process 6. In the
stimulated emission process shown by transition process 7 a signal photon triggers an excited ion to
drop to the ground state, thereby emitting a new photon of the same energy, phase of incoming
signal photon.
16. Discuss the EDFA architecture.

Figure 16.1: a) Co-directional pumping b) Counter directional pumping c) Dual pumping

• An optical fiber amplifier consists of a doped fiber, one or more pump lasers, a passive wavelength
coupler, optical isolators and tap couplers as shown in figure 16.1.
• The dichroic coupler handles either 980/1550 nm or 1480/1550 nm wavelength combinations to
couple both the pump and signal optical powers efficiently into the fiber amplifier.
• The tap couplers are wavelength insensitive with typical splitting ratios of 99:1 to 95:5. They are
generally used on both sides of the amplifier to compare the incoming signal with amplified output.
• The optical isolators prevent the amplified signal from reflecting back into the device, where it could
increase the amplifier noise and decrease the amplifier efficiency.
• The pump light is usually injected from the same direction as signal flow. This is known as co-
directional pumping. If pump power is injected in the opposite direction to signal flow, it is known as
counter-directional pumping. If pumping is done in both directions with dual schemes it is known as
bidirectional or dual pumping.
• Counter-directional pumping allows higher gains but co-directional pumping gives better noise
performance. Pumping at 980 nm is preferred as it produces less noise and achieves larger
population inversions than pumping at 1480 nm.
17. Discuss the amplifier types and basic operation of a generic amplifier.

Figure 17.1: Basic operation of a generic amplifier

• The three main optical amplifier types can be classified as semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs),
active fiber or doped fiber amplifiers (DFAs) and Raman amplifiers. All optical amplifiers increase the
power level of incident light through a stimulated emission or an optical power transfer process.
• In SOAs and DFAs the mechanism for creating population inversion is that which is needed for
stimulated emission in laser diodes. The structure of an optical amplifier is similar to that of a laser; it
does not have an optical feedback mechanism necessary for lasing to take place.
• An optical amplifier can thus boost incoming signal levels, but cannot generate an optical output by
itself. The basic operation is shown in figure 17.1 above. Here the device absorbs energy from an
external source called the pump which supplies energy to the electrons in an active medium and
raises them to higher energy levels to produce population inversion.
• An incoming signal photon will trigger these excited electrons to drop to lower levels through a
stimulated emission process. 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. In contrast to the amplification mechanisms used in an SOA or DFA, Raman amplifiers use a
optical power transfer process without population inversion.