UNIVWERSITY OF SIERRA LEONE

FOURAH BAY COLLEGE

FOURTH EXAMINATION FIRST SEMESTER FOR DEGREE OF B.ENG

OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS EENG425

3rd September 2018

Time allowed 3hrs

Answer five questions

Speed of light c = 3*108m/s, 1Neper(Np) = 8.686dB

Q1
a. Draw clearly the basic structure of an optical cable. [3marks]
b. State three advantages of fibre optic cable. [3marks]
c. What is the difference between step-index and graded index fibre? [1marks]
d. Name three factors that determine the number of modes propagated by step-index fibre.
[3marks]
Q2
a. Name types of dispersion in optical fibre. [3marks]
b. Which dispersion occurs in all optical fibres and which one occurs only in multimode fibre?
[2mark]
c. What is coupling? [1mark]
d. List three reasons why fibre-fibre coupling is required. [3marks]
e. List actions to be performed prior to splicing. [1mark]
Q3
a. List two types of rays that can propagate along an optical fibre. [2marks]
b. Explain briefly the basic types of single mode step-index fibres. [2marks]
c. An optical fibre in air has core refractive index of 1.71 and cladding refractive index of 1.41.
Calculate NA. [2marks]
d. What does NA indicate and what is the meaning of NA? [2mark]
e. State one disadvantage of fibre optic apart from relative newness of the technology.
[1marks]
f. What phenomenon does fibre optic cable operates and when does this phenomenon occurs?
[1mark]
Q4
a. What is wave front? [1mark]
b. If frequency is 1.5GHz and refractive index is 1.5, calculate wave length of the plane wave.

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 [2mark]

b. List three types of LEDs and LASER [3marks]

c. Light pulses propagate through a fiber with an attenuation of 0.25dB/km. Determine the distance
through which the power of pulses is reduced by 70%. [2marks]

d. What is the difference between attenuation and dispersion [2marks]

Q5

a. A 10-km fiber with an attenuation of 0.2dB/km serves as optical link between two points in
Freetown. Show that 63.1% of input power is received. [2marks]

b. If α1 is in Np/km and α2 is in dB/km determine relationship between α1 and α2

[2marks]
c. A light wave is traveling in a semiconductor medium of refractive index 3.6. It is incident on a
difference semiconductor medium of refractive index 3.4 and the angle of incident is 80o. Will
this result in total internal reflection [4marks]
d. A light wave system uses a 30-km fiber link with a loss of 0.4dB/km. f the system requires at
least 0.2mW at the receiver, calculate the minimum power that must be launched into the fiber.
[2marks]
Q6
a. Show that for Coherent Binary FSK, the average probability of symbol error (P e) is given by:

1
Pe = 2 *erfc (√ )
2 Eb
2 N0
[7marks]

Define all parameters.

b. Define the term receiver sensitivity. [1mark]

c. Define dynamic range. [1mark]

d. What is optical detector? [1mark]

Q7
a. List two types of receiver noise [2marks]
b. Explain the meaning of the following acronyms
I. LASER and LED [2marks]
c. What causes microbend in fiber cable? [1marks]
d. Does microbend loss increase or decrease attenuation? If yes or no explain [2marks]
e. When macrobend losses occur in fiber cable? [1mark]

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f. A lightwave system uses a 30-km fiber link with a loss of 0.4dB/km. If the system requires at
least 0.2mW at the receiver, calculate the minimum power that must be launched into the
fiber. [2marks]

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