OPTICAL FIBER

● The use of visible optical carrier waves or light for communication has been common for many
years. Simple systems such as signal fires, reflecting mirrors and, more recently, signaling
lamps have provided successful, if limited, information transfer.
● Some investigation of optical communication continued in the early part of the twentieth
century its use was limited to mobile low-capacity communication links.
● This was due to both (1) the lack of suitable light sources and (2) the problem that light
transmission in the atmosphere is restricted to line of sight and is severely affected by
disturbances such as rain, snow, fog, dust and atmospheric turbulence.
● A renewed interest in optical communication was stimulated in the early 1960s with the
invention of the laser
● This device provided a powerful coherent light source, together with the possibility of
modulation at high frequency.
● The proposals for optical communication via dielectric waveguides or optical fibers fabricated
from glass to avoid degradation of the optical signal by the atmosphere were made almost
simultaneously in 1966 by Kao and Hockham
● Initially the optical fibers exhibited very high attenuation (i.e. 1000 dB km−1) and were
therefore not comparable with the coaxial cables they were to replace (i.e. 5 to 10 dB km−1).
● There were also serious problems involved in jointing the fiber cables in a satisfactory manner
to achieve low loss and to enable the process to be performed relatively easily and repeatedly
in the field.
● Within the space of 10 years optical fiber losses were reduced to below 5 dB km−1 and suitable
low-loss jointing techniques were perfected
● In parallel with the development of the fiber waveguide, attention was also focused on the other
optical components which would constitute the optical fiber communication system.
● Semiconductor optical sources (i.e. injection lasers and light-emitting diodes) and detectors (i.e.
photodiodes and to a lesser extent phototransistors) compatible in size with optical fibers were
designed and fabricated to enable successful implementation of the optical fiber system.
General System:

● In this case the information source provides an electrical signal to a transmitter comprising an
electrical stage which drives an optical source to give modulation of the lightwave carrier.
● The optical source which provides the electrical–optical conversion may be either a
semiconductor laser or light-emitting diode (LED).
 ● The transmission medium consists of an optical fiber cable and the receiver consists of an
optical detector which drives a further electrical stage and hence provides demodulation of the
optical carrier.
● Photodiodes (p–n, p–i–n or avalanche) and, in some instances, phototransistors and
photoconductors are utilized for the detection of the optical signal and the optical–electrical
conversion.
● Thus there is a requirement for electrical interfacing at either end of the optical link and at
present the signal processing is usually performed electrically.
● The optical carrier may be modulated using either an analog or digital information signal.
● In the system shown in Figure 1.2(b) analog modulation involves the variation of the light
emitted from the optical source in a continuous manner.
● With digital modulation, however, discrete changes in the light intensity are obtained (i.e. on–
off pulses).
● Although often simpler to implement, analog modulation with an optical fiber communication
system is less efficient, requiring a far higher signal-to-noise ratio at the receiver than digital
modulation.
● Also, the linearity needed for analog modulation is not always provided by semiconductor
optical sources, especially at high modulation frequencies.
● For these reasons, analog optical fiber communication links are generally limited to shorter
distances and lower bandwidth operation than digital links.

● Figure 1.3 shows a block schematic of a typical digital optical fiber link.
● Initially, the input digital signal from the information source is suitably encoded for optical
transmission.
● The laser drive circuit directly modulates the intensity of the semiconductor laser with the
encoded digital signal.
● Hence a digital optical signal is launched into the optical fiber cable.
● The avalanche photodiode (APD) detector is followed by a front-end amplifier and equalizer
or filter to provide gain as well as linear signal processing and noise band- width reduction.
● Finally, the signal obtained is decoded to give the original digital information.

Advantages of optical fiber communication

● Enormous potential bandwidth. The optical carrier frequency in the range 1013 to 1016 GHz
(generally in the near infrared around 1014 Hz or 105 GHz) yields a far greater potential
transmission bandwidth than metallic cable systems (i.e. coaxial cable bandwidth typically
around 20 MHz over distances up to a maximum of 10 km)
● Small size and weight. Optical fibers have very small diameters which are often no greater than
the diameter of a human hair. Hence, even when such fibers are covered with protective
coatings they are far smaller and much lighter than corresponding copper cables. This is a
tremendous boon towards the alleviation of duct congestion in cities, as well as allowing for an
expansion of signal transmission within mobiles such as aircraft, satellites and even ships.

● Electrical isolation. Optical fibers which are fabricated from glass, or sometimes a plastic
polymer, are electrical insulators and therefore, unlike their metallic counterparts, they do not
exhibit earth loop and interface problems. Furthermore, this property makes optical fiber
transmission ideally suited for communication in electrically hazardous environments as the
fibers create no arcing or spark hazard at abrasions or short circuits.
 ● Immunity to interference and crosstalk. Optical fibers form a dielectric waveguide and are
therefore free from electromagnetic interference (EMI), radio-frequency inter- ference (RFI),
or switching transients giving electromagnetic pulses (EMPs). Hence the operation of an optical
fiber communication system is unaffected by transmission through an electrically noisy
environment and the fiber cable requires no shielding from EMI. The fiber cable is also not
susceptible to lightning strikes if used overhead rather than under- ground. Moreover, it is fairly
easy to ensure that there is no optical interference between fibers and hence, unlike
communication using electrical conductors, crosstalk is negligible, even when many fibers are
cabled together.

● Signal security. The light from optical fibers does not radiate significantly and therefore they
provide a high degree of signal security. Therefore, in theory, any attempt to acquire a message
signal transmitted optically may be detected. This feature is obviously attractive for military,
banking and general data transmission (i.e. computer network) applications.

● Low transmission loss. Fibers have been fabricated with losses as low as 0.15 dB km−1 (see
Section 3.3.2) and this feature has become a major advantage of optical fiber communications.
It facilitates the implementation of communication links with extremely wide optical repeater
or amplifier spacings, thus reducing both system cost and complexity.
1. Adoption of optical fiber communications in the majority of long-haul
telecommunication applications, replacing not only copper cables, but also satellite
communications, as a consequence of the very noticeable delay incurred for voice
transmission when using this latter approach.

● Ruggedness and flexibility. Although protective coatings are essential, optical fibers may be
manufactured with very high tensile strengths . Perhaps surprisingly for a glassy substance, the
fibers may also be bent to quite small radii or twisted without damage. Taking the size and
weight advantage into account, these optical fiber cables are generally superior in terms of
storage, transportation, handling and installation to corresponding copper cables, while
exhibiting at least comparable strength and durability.

● System reliability and ease of maintenance. These features primarily stem from the low-loss
property of optical fiber cables which reduces the requirement for intermediate repeaters or line
amplifiers to boost the transmitted signal strength. Hence with fewer optical repeaters or
amplifiers, system reliability is generally enhanced in comparison with conventional electrical
conductor systems. Furthermore, the reliability of the optical components is no longer a
problem with predicted lifetimes of 20 to 30 years being quite common. Both these factors also
tend to reduce maintenance time and costs.

● Potential low cost. The glass which generally provides the optical fiber transmission medium
is made from sand – not a scarce resource. So, in comparison with copper con- ductors, optical
fibers offer the potential for low-cost line communication. The costs of high-performance semi-
conductor lasers and detector photodiodes are still relatively high.

Optical Fibre Strucure

 Shows a transparent core with a refractive index n1 surrounded by a transparent cladding of

slightly lower refractive index n2.

 The cladding (1) supports the waveguide structure (2) when sufficiently thick, substantially
reducing the radiation loss into the surrounding air.
  In essence, the light energy travels in both the core and the cladding allowing the associated
fields to decay to a negligible value at the cladding–air interface

Ray Theory Transmission

Total Internal reflection

 To consider the propagation of light within an optical fibre utilizing the ray theory model it is
necessary to take account of the refractive index of the dielectric medium.
 The refractive index of a medium is defined as the ratio of the velocity of light in a vacuum
to the velocity of light in the medium.
 A ray of light travels more slowly in an optically dense medium than in one that is less dense,
and the refractive index gives a measure of this effect.
 When a ray is incident on the interface between two dielectrics of differing refractive indices
(e.g. glass–air), refraction occurs, as illustrated in Figure 2.2(a).
 It may be observed that the ray approaching the interface is propagating in a dielectric of
refractive index n1 and is at an angle φ1 to the normal at the surface of the interface.
 If the dielectric on the other side of the interface has a refractive index n2 which is less than n1,
then the refraction is such that the ray path in this lower index medium is at an angle φ2 to the
normal, where φ2 is greater than φ1.
 The angles of incidence φ1 and refraction φ2 are related to each other and to the refractive
indices of the dielectrics by Snell’s law of refraction which states that:

n1 sin φ1 = n2 sin φ2
 Figure 2.2(a) that a small amount of light is reflected back into the originating dielectric
medium (partial internal reflection).
 As n1 is greater than n2, the angle of refraction is always greater than the angle of
incidence.
 Thus when the angle of refraction is 90° and the refracted ray emerges parallel to the interface
between the dielectrics, the angle of incidence must be less than 90°.
 This is the limiting case of refraction and the angle of incidence is now known as the critical
angle φc, as shown in Figure 2.2(b).
 From Eq. (2.1) the value of the critical angle is given by:

 At angles of incidence greater than the critical angle the light is reflected back into the
originating dielectric medium (total internal reflection) with high efficiency (around 99.9%).
 In Figure 2.2(c) that total internal reflection occurs at the interface between two dielectrics of
differing refractive indices when light is incident on the dielectric of lower index from the
dielectric of higher index, and the angle of incidence of the ray exceeds the critical value.
 This is the mechanism by which light at a sufficiently shallow angle (less than 90° − φc) may
be considered to propagate down an optical fibre with low loss.

 Figure 2.3 illustrates the transmission of a light ray in an optical fiber via a series of total internal
reflections at the interface of the silica core and the slightly lower refractive index silica
cladding.
 The ray has an angle of incidence φ at the interface which is greater than the critical angle and
is reflected at the same angle to the normal.
 The light ray shown in Figure 2.3 is known as a meridional ray as it passes through the axis
of the fiber core.
 This type of ray is the simplest to describe and is generally used when illustrating the
fundamental transmission properties of optical fibres.
 It must also be noted that the light transmission illustrated in Figure 2.3 assumes a perfect fiber,
and that any discontinuities or imperfections at the core–cladding interface would probably
result in refraction rather than total internal reflection, with the subsequent loss of the light ray
into the cladding.
Acceptance angle


 Since the NA is often used with the fibre in air where n0 is unity, it is simply equal to sin θa.
 It may also be noted that incident meridional rays over the range 0 ≤ θ1 ≤ θa will be propagated
within the fiber.

 The NA may also be given in terms of the relative refractive index difference Δ between the
core and the cladding which is defined as:*

 Hence

 The relationships given above for the numerical aperture are a very useful measure of the light-
collecting ability of a fibre.
 They are independent of the fibre core diameter and will hold for diameters as small as 8 μm.
 However, for smaller diameters they break down as the geometric optics approach is
invalid.
 This is because the ray theory model is only a partial description of the character of light.
 It describes the direction a plane wave component takes in the fibre but does not take into
account interference between such components.
 When interference phenomena are considered it is found that only rays with certain discrete
characteristics propagate in the fibre core.
 Thus the fibre will only support a discrete number of guided modes. This becomes critical in
smallcore-diameter fibers which only support one or a few modes.
 Hence electromagnetic mode theory must be applied in these cases.
Modes:
 Only a finite set of rays at certain discrete angles greater than or equal to the critical
angle φc is capable of propagating along a fibre.
 These angles are related to a set of electromagnetic wave patterns or field distributions
called modes that can propagate along a fibre.
 When the fibre core diameter is on the order of 8 to 10 μm, which is only a few times
the value of the wavelength, then only the one single fundamental ray that travels
straight along the axis is allowed to propagate in a fibre.
 Such a fibre is referred to as a single-mode fibre.
 The operational characteristics of single-mode fibres cannot be explained by a ray
picture, but instead need to be analyzed in terms of the fundamental mode by using the
electromagnetic wave theory.
 Fibres with larger core diameters (e.g., greater than or equal to 50 μm) support many
propagating rays or modes and are known as multimode fibres.
  A number of performance characteristics of multimode fibres can be explained by ray
theory whereas other attributes (such as the optical coupling concept) need to be
described by wave theory.

Variations of Fiber Types:

 Variations in the material composition of the core and the cladding give rise to the two basic
fibre types shown in Fig.
 In the first case, the refractive index of the core is uniform throughout and undergoes an abrupt
change (or step) at the cladding boundary. This is called a step-index fiber.
 In the second case, the core refractive index varies as a function of the radial distance from the
centre of the fibre. This defines a graded-index fiber.
 Table 4.1 lists typical core, cladding, and buffer coating sizes of optical fibres for use in
telecommunications, in a metropolitan-area network (MAN), or in a local-area network (LAN).
 The outer diameter of the buffer coating can be either 250 or 500 μm.
 Single-mode fibres are used for long-distance communication and for transmissions at very
high data rates.
 The larger-core multimode fibres typically are used for local-area network applications in a
campus environment, particularly for gigabit or 10-Gbit rate Ethernet links, which are known
popularly as GigE and 10GigE, respectively.
 Here the word campus refers to any group of buildings that are within reasonable walking
distance of one.
Single-Mode Fibers:

 An important parameter for single-mode fibres is the cutoff wavelength.

 This is designated by λ cutoff and specifies the smallest wavelength that is, the fibre transmits
light in a single mode only for those wavelengths that are greater than λ cutoff.
 The fibre can support more than one mode if the wavelength of the light is less than the cutoff.
 Thus if a fibre is single-mode at 1310 nm, it is also single-mode at 1550 nm, but not necessarily
at 850 nm.
 When a fibre is fabricated for single-mode use, the cutoff wavelength usually is chosen to be
much less than the desired operating wavelength.
 For example, a fibre for single-mode use at 1310 nm may have a cutoff wavelength of 1275
nm.

 An important parameter connected with the cutoff condition is the V number defined by

 An estimate of the total number of modes supported in a multimode step index fibre is


OPTICAL SOURCES

● Two classes of light sources that are widely used for fiber optic communications are
(1) heterojunction structured semiconductor laser diodes (also referred to as injection laser
diodes or ILDs) and
(2) light-emitting diodes (LEDs).
● A heterojunction consists of two adjoining semiconductor materials with different bandgap
energies.
● These devices are suitable for fiber transmission systems because they have
(1) adequate output power for a wide range of applications,
(2) their optical power output can be directly modulated by varying the input current to the
device,
(3) they have a high efficiency, and
(4) their dimensions are compatible with those of the optical fiber.
● A major difference between LEDs and laser diodes is that the optical output from an LED is
incoherent, whereas that from a laser diode is coherent.
● In a coherent source, the optical energy is produced in an optical resonant cavity.
● The optical energy released from this cavity has spatial and temporal coherence, which means
it is highly monochromatic and the output beam is very directional.
● In an incoherent LED source, no optical cavity exists for wavelength selectivity.
● The output radiation has a broad spectral width,
● Semiconductor materials have conduction properties that lie somewhere between those of
metals and insulators.
● As an example material, we consider silicon (Si), which is located in the fourth column (group
IV) of the periodic table of elements.
● A Si atom has four electrons in its outer shell, by which it makes covalent bonds with its
neighboring atoms in a crystal.
● Such outer-shell electrons are called valence electrons.
● The conduction properties of a semiconductor can be interpreted with the aid of the energy-
band diagrams shown in Fig. 4.la.
● In a semiconductor the valence electrons occupy a band of energy levels called the valence
band.
● This is the lowest band of allowed states.
● The next higher band of allowed energy levels for the electrons is called the conduction band.
● In a pure crystal at low temperatures, the conduction band is completely empty of electrons and
the valence band is completely full.
● These two bands are separated by an energy gap, or bandgap, in which no energy levels exist.
● As the temperature is raised, some electrons are thermally excited across the bandgap.
● For Si this excitation energy must be greater than 1.1 eV, which is the bandgap energy.
● This electron excitation process gives rise to a concentration n of free electrons in the
conduction band, which leaves behind an equal concentration p of vacancies, or holes, in the
valence band, as is shown schematically in Fig. 4.1b.
● Both the free electrons and the holes are mobile within the material, so that both can contribute
to electrical conductivity; that is, an electron in the valence band can move into a vacant hole.
This action makes the hole move in the opposite direction to the electron flow, as is shown in
Fig. 4.1a.
● When an electron propagates in a semiconductor, it interacts with the periodically arranged
constituent atoms of the material and thus experiences external forces.
 ● Here, T is the temperature in degrees Kelvin, kB is Boltzmann’s constant, h is Planck’s
constant, and me and mh are the effective masses of the electrons and holes, respectively, which
can be smaller by a factor of 10 or more than the free-space electron rest mass of 9.11 ¥ 10−31
kg.
● The conduction can be greatly increased by adding traces of impurities from the group V
elements (e.g., P, As, Sb).
● This process is called doping, and the doped semiconductor is called an extrinsic material.
● These elements have five electrons in the outer shell.
● When they replace a Si atom, four electrons are used for covalent bonding, and the fifth, loosely
bound electron is available for conduction.
● As shown in Fig. 4.2a, this gives rise to an occupied level, just below the conduction band,
called the donor level.
● The impurities are called donors because they can give up (donate) an electron to the conduction
band.
● This is reflected by the increase in the free-electron concentration in the conduction band, as
shown in Fig. 4.2b.
● Since in this type of material the current is carried by (negative) electrons (because the electron
concentration is much higher than that of holes), it is called n-type material.
● The conduction can also be increased by adding group III elements, which have three electrons
in the outer shell.
● In this case, three electrons make covalent bonds, and a hole with properties identical to that of
the donor electron is created.
● As shown in Fig. 4.3a, this gives rise to an unoccupied level just above the valence band.
● Conduction occurs when electrons are excited from the valence band to this acceptor level (so
called because the impurity atoms have accepted electrons from the valence band).
● Correspondingly, the free-hole concentration increases in the valence band, as shown in Fig.
4.3b.
● This is called p-type material because the conduction is a result of (positive) hole flow.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Material

● A perfect material containing no impurities is called an intrinsic material.

● Because of thermal vibrations of the crystal atoms, some electrons in the valence band gain
enough energy to be excited to the conduction band.
● This thermal generation process produces free electron–hole pairs because every electron that
moves to the conduction band leaves behind a hole.
● Thus for an intrinsic material the number of electrons and holes are both equal to the intrinsic
carrier density, as denoted by Eq. (4.1).
● In the opposite recombination process, a free electron releases its energy and drops into a free
hole in the valence band.
● For an extrinsic semiconductor, the increase of one type of carrier reduces the number of the
other type.
● In this case, the product of the two types of carriers remains constant at a given temperature.
● This gives rise to the mass-action law which is valid for both intrinsic and extrinsic materials
under thermal equilibrium.

● Since the electrical conductivity is proportional to the carrier concentration, two types of charge
carriers are defined for this material:
1. Majority carriers refer either to electrons in n-type material or to holes in p-type material.
2. Minority carriers refer either to holes in n-type material or to electrons in p-type material.
 ● The operation of semiconductor devices is essentially based on the injection and extraction of
minority carriers.

The pn Junctions

● Doped n- or p-type semiconductor material by itself serves only as a conductor.

● To make devices out of these semiconductors, it is necessary to use both types of materials (in
a single, continuous crystal structure).
● The junction between the two material regions, which is known as the pn junction, is
responsible for the useful electrical characteristics of a semiconductor device.
● When a pn junction is created, the majority carriers diffuse across it.
● This causes electrons to fill holes in the p side of the junction and causes holes to appear on the
n side.
● As a result, an electric field (or barrier potential ) appears across the junction, as is shown in
Fig. 4.4.
● This field prevents further net movements of charges once equilibrium has been established.
● The junction area now has no mobile carriers because its electrons and holes are locked into a
covalent bond structure.
● This region is called either the depletion region or the space charge region.
● When an external battery is connected to the pn junction with its positive terminal to the n-type
material and its negative terminal to the p-type material, the junction is said to be reverse-
biased. This is shown in Fig. 4.5.
● As a result of the reverse bias, the width of the depletion region will increase on both the n side
and the p side.
● This effectively increases the barrier potential and prevents any majority carriers from flowing
across the junction.
● However, minority carriers can move with the field across the junction.
● The minority carrier flow is small at normal temperatures and operating voltages, but it can be
significant when excess carriers are created as, for example, in an illuminated photodiode.
● When the pn junction is forward-biased, as shown in Fig. 4.6, the magnitude of the barrier
potential is reduced.
● Conduction-band electrons on the n side and valence-band holes on the p side are,thereby,
allowed to diffuse across the junction.
● Once across, they significantly increase the minority carrier concentrations, and the excess
carriers then recombine with the oppositely charged majority carriers.
● The recombination of excess minority carriers is the mechanism by which optical radiation is
generated.
Direct and Indirect Bandgaps:

● In order for electron transitions to take place to or from the conduction band with the absorption
or emission of a photon, respectively, both energy and momentum must be conserved.
● Although a photon can have considerable energy, its momentum hv/c is very small.

● Semiconductors are classified as either direct-bandgap or indirect-bandgap materials depending

on the shape of the bandgap as a function of the momentum k, as shown in Fig. 4.7.
● consider recombination of an electron and a hole, accompanied by the emission of a photon.
● The simplest and most probable recombination process will be that where the electron and hole
have the same momentum value (see Fig. 4.7a).
● This is a direct-bandgap material.
● For indirect-bandgap materials, the conduction-band minimum and the valence-band maximum
energy levels occur at different values of momentum, as shown in Fig. 4.7b.
● Here, band-to-band recombination must involve a third particle to conserve momentum because
the photon momentum is very small.
● Phonons (i.e., crystal lattice vibrations) serve this purpose.
Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs):

● For optical communication systems requiring bit rates less than approximately 100–200 Mb/s
together with multimode fiber-coupled optical power in the tens of microwatts, semiconductor
light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are usually the best light source choice.
● These LEDs require less complex drive circuitry than laser diodes as no thermal or optical
stabilization circuits are needed , and they can be fabricated less expensively with higher yields.

LED Structures

● To be useful in fiber transmission applications, an LED must have a high radiance output, a
fast emission response time, and a high quantum efficiency.
● Its radiance (or brightness) is a measure, in watts, of the optical power radiated into a unit solid
angle per unit area of the emitting surface.
● High radiances are necessary to couple sufficiently high optical power levels into a fiber.
● The emission response time is the time delay between the application of a current pulse and the
onset of optical emission.
● time delay is the factor limiting the bandwidth with which the source can be modulated directly
by varying the injected current.
● The quantum efficiency is related to the fraction of injected electron–hole pairs that recombine
radiatively.
● To achieve a high radiance and a high quantum efficiency, the LED structure must provide a
means of confining the charge carriers and the stimulated optical emission to the active region
of the pn junction where radiative recombination takes place.
● Carrier confinement is used to achieve a high level of radiative recombination in the active
region of the device, which yields a high quantum efficiency.
● Optical confinement is of importance for preventing absorption of the emitted radiation by the
material surrounding the pn junction.
● To achieve carrier and optical confinement, LED configurations such as homojunctions and
single and double heterojunctions have been widely investigated.
● The most effective of these structures is the configuration shown in Fig. 4.8.

●
● This is referred to as a double-heterostructure (or heterojunction) device because of the two
different alloy layers on each side of the active region.
● This configuration evolved from studies on laser diodes.
● By means of this sandwich structure of differently composed alloy layers, both the carriers and
the optical field are confined in the central active layer.
● The bandgap differences of adjacent layers confine the charge carriers (Fig. 4.8b), while the
differences in the indices of refraction of adjoining layers confine the optical field to the central
active layer (Fig. 4.8c).
● This dual confinement leads to both high efficiency and high radiance.
● Other parameters influencing the device performance include optical absorption in the active
region (self-absorption), carrier recombination at the heterostructure interfaces, doping
concentration of the active layer, injection carrier density, and activelayer thickness.
● The two basic LED configurations being used for fiber optics are surface emitters (also called
Burrus or front emitters) and edge emitters.
● In the surface emitter, the plane of the active light-emitting region is oriented perpendicularly
to the axis of the fiber, as shown in Fig. 4.9.

● In this configuration, a well is etched through the substrate of the device, into which a fiber is
then cemented in order to accept the emitted light.
● The circular active area in practical surface emitters is nominally 50 mm in diameter and up to
2.5 mm thick.
● The emission pattern is essentially isotropic with a 120° half-power beam width.
● This isotropic pattern from such a surface emitter is called a lambertian pattern.
● In this pattern, the source is equally bright when viewed from any direction, but the power
diminishes as cos q, where q is the angle between the viewing direction and the normal to the
surface (this is because the projected area one sees decreases as cos q).
● Thus, the power is down to 50 percent of its peak when q = 60°, so that the total half-power
beam width is 120°.
● The edge emitter depicted in Fig. 4.10 consists of an active junction region, which is the source
of the incoherent light, and two guiding layers.
● The guiding layers both have a refractive index lower than that of the active region but higher
than the index of the surrounding material.
● This structure forms a waveguide channel that directs the optical radiation toward the fiber
core.
●
 ●
● To match the typical fiber-core diameters (50–100 mm), the contact stripes for the edge emitter
are 50–70 mm wide. Lengths of the active regions usually range from 100 to 150 mm.
● The emission pattern of the edge emitter is more directional than that of the surface emitter, as
is illustrated in Fig. 4.10.
● In the plane parallel to the junction, where there is no waveguide effect, the emitted beam is
lambertian (varying as cos q) with a half-power width of q| | = 120°.
● In the plane perpendicular to the junction, the half-power beam q^ has been made as small as
25–35° by a proper choice of the waveguide thickness.

Laser Diodes:

● Lasers come in many forms with dimensions ranging from the size of a grain of salt to one that
will occupy an entire room.
● The lasing medium can be a gas, a liquid, an insulating crystal (solid state), or a semiconductor.
● For optical fiber systems the laser sources used almost exclusively are semiconductor laser
diodes.
● They are similar to other lasers, such as the conventional solid-state and gas lasers, in that the
emitted radiation has spatial and temporal coherence; that is, the output radiation is highly
monochromatic and the light beam is very directional.
● Despite their differences, the basic principle of operation is the same for each type of laser.
● Laser action is the result of three key processes: photon absorption, spontaneous emission, and
stimulated emission.
● These three processes are represented by the simple two-energy-level diagrams in Fig. 4.17,
where E1 is the ground-state energy and E2 is the excited-state energy.
● According to Planck’s law, a transition between these two states involves the absorption or
emission of a photon of energy hn12 = E2 – E1.
 ● Normally, the system is in the ground state.
● When a photon of energy hn12 impinges on the system, an electron in state E1 can absorb the
photon energy and be excited to state E2, as shown in Fig. 4.17a.
● Since this is an unstable state, the electron will shortly return to the ground state, thereby
emitting a photon of energy hn12.
● This occurs without any external stimulation and is called spontaneous emission.
● These emissions are isotropic and of random phase, and thus appear as a narrowband gaussian
output.
● The electron can also be induced to make a downward transition from the excited level to the
groundstate level by an external stimulation. As shown in Fig. 4.17c, if a photon of energy hn12
impinges on the system while the electron is still in its excited state, the electron is immediately
stimulated to drop to the ground state and give off a photon of energy hn12.
● This emitted photon is in phase with the incident photon, and the resultant emission is known
as stimulated emission.
● In thermal equilibrium the density of excited electrons is very small.
● Most photons incident on the system will therefore be absorbed, so that stimulated emission is
essentially negligible.
● Stimulated emission will exceed absorption only if the population of the excited states is greater
than that of the ground state.
● This condition is known as population inversion.
● Since this is not an equilibrium condition, population inversion is achieved by various
“pumping” techniques.
● In a semiconductor laser, population inversion is accomplished by injecting electrons into the
material at the device contacts or through an optical absorption method by means of externally
injected photons.

PhotoDetectors

● At the output end of an optical transmission line, there must be a receiving device that interprets
the information contained in the optical signal.
● The first element of this receiver is a photodetector.
● The photodetector senses the luminescent power falling upon it and converts the variation of
this optical power into a correspondingly varying electric current.
● Since the optical signal is generally weakened and distorted when it emerges from the end of
the fiber, the photodetector must meet very high performance requirements.
● Among the foremost of these requirements are (1) a high response or sensitivity in the emission
wavelength range of the optical source being used,(2) a minimum addition of noise to the
system, and (3) a fast response speed or sufficient bandwidth to handle the desired data rate.
● The photodetector should also be insensitive to variations in temperature, be compatible with
the physical dimensions of the optical fiber, have a reasonable cost in relation to the other
components of the system, and have a long operating life.
● Several different types of photodetectors are in existence.
● Among these are photomultipliers, pyroelectric detectors, and semiconductor-based
photoconductors, phototransistors, and photodiodes.
● However, many of these detectors do not meet one or more of the foregoing requirements.
● Photomultipliers consisting of a photocathode and an electron multiplier packaged in a vacuum
tube are capable of very high gain and very low noise. Unfortunately, their large size and high
voltage requirements make them unsuitable for optical fiber systems.
● Pyroelectric photodetectors involve the conversion of photons to heat. Photon absorption
results in a temperature change of the detector material. This gives rise to a variation in the
 dielectric constant, which is usually measured as a capacitance change. The response of this
detector is quite flat over a broad spectral band, but its speed is limited by the detector cooling
rate after it has been excited.
● Its principal use is for detecting high-speed laser pulses, and it is not well suited for optical
fiber systems.
● Of the semiconductor-based photodetectors, the photodiode is used almost exclusively for fiber
optic systems because of its small size, suitable material, high sensitivity, and fast response
time.
● The two types of photodiodes used are the pin photodetector and the avalanche photodiode
(APD).

Physical Principles of Photodiodes

The pin Photodetector

● The most common semiconductor photodetector is the pin photodiode, shown schematically in
Fig. 6.1.

● The device structure consists of p and n regions separated by a very lightly n-doped intrinsic
(i) region.
● In normal operation a sufficiently large reverse-bias voltage is applied across the device so that
the intrinsic region is fully depleted of carriers.
● That is, the intrinsic n and p carrier concentrations are negligibly small in comparison with the
impurity concentration in this region.
● As a photon flux F penetrates into a semiconductor, it will be absorbed as it progresses through
the material.
● Suppose Pin is the optical power level falling on the photodetector at x = 0 and P(x) is the
power level at a distance x into the material.
● Then the incremental change dP(x) in the optical power level as this photon flux passes through
an incremental distance dx in the semiconductor is given by dP(x) = – as(l) P(x) dx, where as(l)
is the photon absorption coeffi cient at a wavelength l.
●
●
● Integrating this relationship gives the power level at a distance x into the material as

● Figure 6.1 gives an example of the power level as a function of the penetration depth into the
intrinsic region, which has a width w.
● The width of the p region typically is very thin so that little radiation is absorbed there.
● When an incident photon has an energy greater than or equal to the bandgap energy of the
semiconductor material, the photon can give up its energy and excite an electron from the
valence band to the conduction band.

● This absorption process generates mobile electron–hole pairs, as Fig. 6.2 shows.

● These electrons and holes are known as photocarriers, since they are photon-generated charge
carriers that are available to produce a current flow when a bias voltage is applied across the
device.
● The number of charge carriers is controlled by the concentration level of impurity elements that
are intentionally added to the material.
● The photodetector is normally designed so that these carriers are generated mainly in the
depletion region (the depleted intrinsic region) where most of the incident light is absorbed.
● The high electric field present in the depletion region causes the carriers to separate and be
collected across the reverse-biased junction.
● This gives rise to a current flow in an external circuit, with one electron flowing for every
carrier pair generated.
● This current flow is known as the photocurrent.
● As the charge carriers flow through the material, some electron–hole pairs will recombine and
hence disappear.
● On the average, the charge carriers move a distance Ln or Lp for electrons and holes,
respectively.
● This distance is known as the diffusion length.
● The time it takes for an electron or hole to recombine is known as the carrier lifetime and is
represented by tn and tp, respectively.
● The lifetimes and the diffusion lengths are related by the expressions

● where Dn and Dp are the electron and hole diffusion coefficients (or constants), respectively,
which are expressed in units of centimeters squared per second.

● A particular semiconductor material can be used only over a limited wavelength range.
● The upper wavelength cutoff lc is determined by the bandgap energy Eg of the material.
● If Eg is expressed in units of electron volts (eV), then lc is given in units of micrometers (mm)
by

● The cutoff wavelength is about 1.06 mm for Si and 1.6 mm for Ge.
● For longer wavelengths, the photon energy is not sufficient to excite an electron from the
valence to the conduction band.
● At the lower-wavelength end, the photoresponse cuts off as a result of the very large values of
as at the shorter wavelengths.
● In this case, the photons are absorbed very close to the photodetector surface, where the
recombination time of the generated electron–hole pairs is very short.
● The generated carriers thus recombine before they can be collected by the photodetector
circuitry.
● If the depletion region has a width w, then, from Eq. (6.1), the total power absorbed in the
distance w is
● If we take into account a reflectivity Rf at the entrance face of the photodiode, then the primary
photocurrent Ip resulting from the power absorption of Eq. (6.3) is given by

● where Pin is the optical power incident on the photodetector, q is the electron charge, and hn is
the photon energy.
● Two important characteristics of a photodetector are its quantum efficiency and its response
speed.
● These parameters depend on the material bandgap, the operating wavelength, and the doping
and thickness of the p, i, and n regions of the device.
● The quantum efficiency h is the number of the electron–hole carrier pairs generated per
incident–absorbed photon of energy hn and is given by

● Here, Ip is the photocurrent generated by a steady-state optical power Pin incident on the
photodetector.
● In a practical photodiode, 100 photons will create between 30 and 95 electron–hole pairs, thus
giving a detector quantum efficiency ranging from 30 to 95 percent.
● To achieve a high quantum efficiency, the depletion layer must be thick enough to permit a
large fraction of the incident light to be absorbed.
● However, the thicker the depletion layer, the longer it takes for the photogenerated carriers to
drift across the reverse biased junction.
● Since the carrier drift time determines the response speed of the photodiode, a compromise has
to be made between response speed and quantum efficiency.
● The performance of a photodiode is often characterized by the responsivity R. This is related
to the quantum efficiency by

●
● This parameter is quite useful because it specifies the photocurrent generated per unit of optical
power.
● In most photodiodes the quantum efficiency is independent of the power level falling on the
detector at a given photon energy.
● Thus the responsivity is a linear function of the optical power.
● That is, the photocurrent Ip is directly proportional to the optical power Pin incident upon the
photodetector, so that the responsivity R is constant at a given wavelength (a given value of
hn).
● Note, however, that the quantum efficiency is not a constant at all wavelengths because it varies
according to the photon energy.
● Consequently, the responsivity is a function of the wavelength and of the photodiode material
(since different materials have different bandgap energies).
● For a given material, as the wavelength of the incident photon becomes longer, the photon
energy becomes less than that required to excite an electron from the valence band to the
conduction band.
● The responsivity thus falls off rapidly beyond the cutoff wavelength.
Avalanche Photodiodes

● Avalanche photodiodes (APDs) internally multiply the primary signal photocurrent before it
enters the input circuitry of the following amplifier.
● This increases receiver sensitivity, since the photocurrent is multiplied before encountering the
thermal noise associated with the receiver circuit.
● In order for carrier multiplication to take place, the photogenerated carriers must traverse a
region where a very high electric field is present.
● In this high-field region, a photogenerated electron or hole can gain enough energy so that it
ionizes bound electrons in the valence band upon colliding with them.
● This carrier multiplication mechanism is known as impact ionization.
● The newly created carriers are also accelerated by the high electric field, thus gaining enough
energy to cause further impact ionization.
● This phenomenon is the avalanche effect.
● Below the diode breakdown voltage a finite total number of carriers are created, whereas above
breakdown the number can be infinite.
● A commonly used structure for achieving carrier multiplication with very little excess noise is
the reach-through construction shown in Fig. 6.5.

● The reach-through avalanche photodiode (RAPD) is composed of a high-resistivity p-type

material deposited as an epitaxial layer on a p+ (heavily doped p-type) substrate.
● A p-type diffusion or ion implant is then made in the high-resistivity material, followed by the
construction of an n+ (heavily doped n-type) layer.
● For silicon, the dopants used to form these layers are normally boron and phosphorus,
respectively.
● This configuration is referred to as p+ppn+ reach-through structure.
 ● The p layer is basically an intrinsic material that inadvertently has some p doping because of
imperfect purification.
● The term “reach-through” arises from the photodiode operation.
● When a low reverse-bias voltage is applied, most of the potential drop is across the pn+
junction. The depletion layer widens with increasing bias until a certain voltage is reached at
which the peak electric field at the pn+ junction is about 5–10 percent below that needed to
cause avalanche breakdown.
● At this point, the depletion layer just “reaches through” to the nearly intrinsic p region.
● In normal usage, the RAPD is operated in the fully depleted mode.
● Light enters the device through the p+ region and is absorbed in the p material, which acts as
the collection region for the photogenerated carriers.
● Upon being absorbed, the photon gives up its energy, thereby creating electron–hole pairs,
which are then separated by the electric field in the p region.
● The photogenerated electrons drift through the p region in the pn+ junction, where a high
electric field exists.
● It is in this high-field region that carrier multiplication takes place.
● The average number of electron–hole pairs created by a carrier per unit distance traveled is
called the ionization rate.
● Most materials exhibit different electron ionization rates a and hole ionization rates b.
● The ratio k = b/a of the two ionization rates is a measure of the photodetector performance.
● Avalanche photodiodes constructed of materials in which one type of carrier largely dominates
impact ionization exhibit low noise and large gain-bandwidth products.
● The multiplication M for all carriers generated in the photodiode is defined by

● where IM is the average value of the total multiplied output current and Ip is the primary
unmultiplied photocurrent defined in Eq. (6.4).
● In practice, the avalanche mechanism is a statistical process, since not every carrier pair
generated in the diode experiences the same multiplication.
● Thus, the measured value of M is expressed as an average quantity.
● Analogous to the pin photodiode, the performance of an APD is character ized by its
responsivity R APD, which is given by

where R is the unity gain responsivity.