ETEG 422

Lecture 2

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 Outline

Optical Fiber Communication:

Historical Perspective
Basic Optical Communication System

Of course optical fiber communication technology is the result of quest for transmitting
large volume of information in fastest possible time. Optical or radio signal is appropriate
as a fastest means as they get transmitted in the medium with a highest possible velocity
that physics have encountered. To overcome some drawbacks of radio or electromagnetic
signal via copper medium, optical medium is developed and used.

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 How a Fiber Optic Communication Works

• Unlike copper wire-based transmission where the transmission entirely depends

on electrical signals passing through the cable, fiber optics transmission involves
the transmission of signals in the form of light from one point to the other.
Furthermore, a fiber optic communication network consists of transmitting and
receiving circuitry, a light source, and detector devices

• When the input data, in the form of electrical signals, is given to the transmitter
circuitry, it converts them into a light signal with the help of a light source. This
source amplitude, frequency, and phases must remain stable and free from
fluctuation in order to have efficient transmission. The light beam from the
source is carried by a fiber optic cable to the destination circuitry wherein the
information is transmitted back to the electrical signal by a receiver circuit.

• The Receiver circuit consists of a photodetector along with an appropriate

electronic circuit, which is capable of measuring the magnitude, frequency, and
phase of the optic field.
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 General Block diagram of
Optical Fiber Communication System

Source of Electrical
Optical Tx
information Transmit

Optical fiber Optical fiber

ADMz Amplifiers cable
cable

Electrical
Photodetector Destination
stage

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 Advantages of Optical fiber communication system

 High Bandwidth (Faster Speed)

 High degree of signal security (hard to tap)
 Small size and less weight and occupy less area compared to metal
 Optical fibers are insulators, so there is no electrical hazards
 There is a small transmission loss in optical fibers cable as
compared to metallic cable
 No Electromagnetic Interference (EMI)
 Instillation is very easy due to less weight
 Very flexible, easily bend, and opposes most acidic elements that hit the
copper wire
 WDM/DWDM (Wavelength Division Multiplexing/Dense
Wavelength Division Multiplexers) can be implemented to
increase the capacity (a very large number of signals of slightly
different wavelengths can be sent along the same fiber).
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WDM

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 DWDM

OADM and EDFA are major components in DWDM

OADM: Optical Add Drop Multiplexer
EDFA: Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier

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Disadvantages of Optical fiber communication system

 Manufacturing cost of optical fiber is high

 Initial cost of installation is high
 Highly skilled manpower and special test equipment is
required for the installation and the maintenance of the
optical fiber communication system
 O/E/O conversion is complex
 They have limited physical arc of cables
 Not robust as the wires

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 Major Issues in Optical Fiber Communication

 In case of optical communication, Attenuation and

Dispersion are the major problems that limits the speed
and distance of communication

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Bit Rate Distance Product Improvement in OFC

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 An Early History of Optical Fiber
Fiber optics’ roots can be traced back to the late 1800s. In 1870, Irish physicist John
Tyndall demonstrated that light could be guided to follow a specific path. In a stream of
water that flowed downward from one container to another, he directed a beam of
sunlight to the same path as the water. Tyndall’s experiments demonstrated total internal
reflection, which means light follow a specific path.
 An Early History of Optical Fiber
In 1880 scientist William Wheeling expanded on Tyndall’s work. He patented a method of
light transfer called “piping light.” Using several mirrored pipes that extended from a
single light source, the light could be sent to different rooms in a way similar to water
plumbing in a building. These findings, along with Tyndall’s, formed the basis of modern
fiber optics communications networks.

However, William’s concept did not take off because of Edison’s incandescent light bulb
gained widespread popularity.
 An Early History of Optical Fiber
1870 Scientist John Tyndall’s experiments with water and beams of light mark the first
research of the guided transmission of light.

1880 Scientist William Wheeling patents a method of light transfer called “piping light.”

Alexander Graham Bell develops the photophone, an optical voice transmission system. Free
Light Space carried voice 200 meters i.e. he showed Without the benefit of lasers or
modern detectors, the photophone could transmit a human voice hundreds of meters
on a beam of light

Although photophone did not

Materialize, it became the
Forerunner to a networking
Technology called FSO (Free
Space Optics)
 An Early History of Optical Fiber
1920 John Logie Baird (England) and Clarence W. Hansell (U.S.) jointly file patent for a
method to carry television images through transparent pipes. Images were transmitted in
1993 but it was for short distance and the quality was very low

1950’s Fiber Optics Scope started after the world war again
 An Early History of Optical Fiber
Glass coated fibers developed to reduce optical loss

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 History of Optical Fiber
 1954: Abraham Van Heel covered a bare glass fiber with a
transparent coating having lower refractive index than the bare
fiber such that the light was contained in the fiber and did not leak out
 1960: Fiberscope started to use and Laser is also developed the same
year

1966 Charles K Kho proposed

that communications are
possible with single mode fiber

1970 Keck, Maurer, and

Schultz from Corning glass
invented single mode optical
fiber that works in 633nm
wavelength and has attenuation
below 20dB/Km
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 History of Optical Fiber
 1977 multimode fibers are used, first generation system 850nm
wavelength with loss of 2dB/Km is started to be used. Immediately
second generation system with 1300 nm wavelength with 0.4dB/Km
loss also started to be used
 1980 Bell labs proposed first transatlantic fiber cable (TAT-8, single
mode fiber cable, 565Mbps over 2 pair fiber)
 1984 Microwave Communications Inc. (MCI) used single mode fiber
called MCI Terrestrial system that operated at 1300 nm at 400 Mbps and
amplifier spaced every 50 KMs
 1988, 1300 nm becomes standard for fiber optic system
 1992, 1550 nm started to appear with 0.2dB/Km loss
 EDFA (Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier) is developed and WDM is
started to be used

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 Transmission of Light in Optical Fiber
If a light ray is an incident at the interface of two media with an angle greater
than the critical angle, it is completely reflected back to the denser medium.
This phenomenon is called total internal reflection.

Optical fibers use total internal reflection to transmit light. It has a solid core of
dense glass surrounded by a less dense cladding. The light ray passing through
the inner core is reflected back instead of being refracted to the rarer cladding.

Theoretically, there should not be any loss of light waves due to total
internal reflection. However, attenuation of light occurs depending upon the
wavelength of light waves and the properties of the glasses.
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 The Fiber as a Dielectric Wave-Guide: Fiber Modes
There are two broad classifications of modes: Radiation Modes and Guided Modes.
Radiation modes carry energy out of the core; the energy is quickly dissipated. Guided
modes are confined to the core, and propagate energy along the fiber, transporting
information and power. If the fiber core is large enough, it can support many
simultaneous guided modes. Each guided mode has its own distinct velocity and can be
further decomposed into orthogonal linearly polarized components.

Losses in OFC
- Dispersion
- Intermodal and Intramodal dispersion
(Pulse broadening within a single mode is called as intramodal
dispersion or chromatic dispersion: e.g. material dispersion and
waveguide dispersion.)
(Dispersion caused by multipath propagation of light energy in
multimode fiber is referred to as intermodal dispersion.)
- Attenuation
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 Numerical Aperture (NA)

The Numerical Aperture (NA) of a fiber is defined as the sine of the

largest angle (acceptance angle) an incident ray can have for total internal
reflectance in the core. Rays launched outside the angle specified by a
fiber's NA will excite radiation modes of the fiber. A higher core index,
with respect to the cladding, means larger NA. However, increasing NA
causes higher scattering loss from greater concentrations of dopant.

Qualitatively, NA is a measure of the

light gathering ability of a fiber. It also
indicates how easy it is to couple light
into a fiber.

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 Classification of Optical Fibers
The classification of optical fiber can be done based on the materials
used, refractive index, and mode of propagation of light

 According to the mode of operation:

 Single Mode Fiber (SMF)
 Multi-Mode Fiber (MMF)
 According to the refractive index profile:
 Step Index (SI) optical fiber
 Graded Index (GI) optical fiber
 According to the materials used:
 Glass optical fiber
 Plastic optical fiber

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 Classification of Optical Fibers
 According to the mode of operation:
 Single-mode
 Multimode

Single Mode: It is a single strand of glass fiber that allows only one beam of the
light signal to propagate. The core has a very small diameter of 9μm.

Multimode : It allows multiple beams from the light source to move along
different paths. The core diameter is either 50μm or 62.5μm.
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 Classification of Optical Fibers
 According to the mode of operation:
 Single-mode
 Multimode

Single mode fiber is designed to propagate a single light mode whereas multimode
supports multiple simultaneous light modes. This difference impacts bandwidth,
signal transmission distance and signal stability. Additionally, single mode and
multimode cables are built differently. The optical core in a single mode cable is
9µm and the optical core in a modern multimode cable is 50µm, though older fiber
cables (specifically OM1 rated cables) features a 62.5µm core.

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 Classification of Optical Fibers
 According to the mode of operation:
 Single-mode
 Multimode

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 Classification of Optical Fibers
 How do you differentiate between the Multimode optical fiber (MMF)
and Single mode fiber(SMF)?
 From color
 Multimode fiber- Orange
 Single mode fiber-Yellow

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 Classification of Optical Fibers
 From structure
 Core and cladding approximate diameters:
 MMF: Common types for fiber-optic communications are 50/125 μm
and 62.5/125 μm fibers, having a core diameter of 50 μm or 62.5 μm,
respectively, and a cladding diameter of 125 μm
 SMF: 9/125 μm fibers, having a core diameter of 9 μm and a cladding
diameter of 125 μm.

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 Classification of Optical Fibers
Difference between Single Mode Fiber and Multi Mode Fiber

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 Classification of Optical Fibers
 According to the Refractive Index Profile:
 Step Index
 Graded Index

In optics, the refractive index (a.k.a. refraction index) of an optical medium is a

dimensionless number that gives the indication of the light bending ability of that medium.
The refractive index determines how much the path of light is bent, or refracted, when
entering a material. This is described by Snell's law of refraction
The refractive index can be seen as the factor by
which the speed and the wavelength of the radiation
are reduced with respect to their vacuum values
The refractive index may vary with wavelength.
This causes white light to split into constituent
colors when refracted.
The relative refractive index of an optical medium 2 with respect to another reference medium 1 (n21) is given by the ratio of
speed of light in medium 1 to that in medium 2. This can be expressed as follows: n21=v1/v2

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 Classification of Optical Fibers
 According to the Refractive Index Profile:
 Step Index
 Graded Index
 step index fiber is fiber type cylindrical waveguide core with inner core has a
uniform refractive index of n1 and the core is surrounded by an outer cladding
with a uniform refractive index of n2. While the graded index fiber has a core
made from many layers of glass and also have the graded index fiber, the
refractive index is not uniform within the core. But the refractive index of
cladding is uniform. Hence the nature of the refractive index of the core is
somewhat parabolic.

Where,
r is the radial position
n 1 2 −n 2 2 n 1 −n 2 a is the core radius
∆= ≈
2n 1 2 n1
α is profile parameter, α = 2 for parabolic profile
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 Classification of Optical Fibers
Difference between Step Index and Graded Index Fiber

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 Classification of Optical Fibers
 According to the Material Used:
 Plastic Optical Fiber
 Glass Fibers
 Glass optical fibers are constructed of tiny strands of glass that are bundled
together
 Plastic optical fiber (POF) is introduced to optical links later than glass optical
fiber. It is an optical fiber in which the core and cladding are both made out of
plastic or polymeric materials rather than glass.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Glass Fiber and POF ???

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 Classification of Optical Fibers
Difference between Glass Optical Fiber and Plastic Optical Fiber
Item Glass optical fiber Plastic optical fiber
More narrow (about 50-
100μm for multimode fiber Wider (about 150-2000μm
Core diameter
and 8-10μm for single mode and even up to 20000μm)
fiber)

Numerical aperture Larger More narrow

Cost More expensive Less expensive

Signal strength Poorer Better

Extreme temperatures Sustainable Unsustainable

Flexibility Less flexible More flexible

Consumability More complex Easier

Transmission distance Longer Shorter

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Transmission Windows

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Transmission Windows

C: Conventional Band
L: Long wavelength Band

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 &
Discussion
&
END
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