TELCOM 2222

Photonic Communications

Intro to Photonics
& to this course

Dr. Richard A. Thompson

Telecommunications Program
University of Pittsburgh
 Grand claim

Photonics technology is changing

telecommunications in the same
ways that electronics technology
has been changing computing:
by improving throughput, cost,
availability, and (thereby) human
capability by orders of magnitude.
 Steel Bricks
• Technological history of building a wall
– Bricks from dried clay – “adobe”
• >5 feet tall  weight crumbles bricks at the bottom
– Mix in straw while the clay is still wet
– “cinder block” – porous & hollow areas
• Steel? - Should make us re-think the architecture
– Reinforced concrete (“rebars” = steel straw)
– Make a wall from steel bricks? - No
– Build steel skeleton &
attach suspended wall segments
• Photonics:Telecom :: Steel:walls
– Photonics has scaled-up data rates,
– Just beginning to take full advantage
Academic
Course purposes
Level
• To understand:
1. Present: data (digital) transport over fiber
• Optical fiber
College • Opto-electronic transmitters & receivers
senior
• Systems (link budget calculations)
2. Future (research now): Photonic switching
PhD
• Devices, paradigms, architectures
• Provide overview of:
– Physics, devices, electronics
– Transport systems
 Summer schedule
3:11 per week
Course structure 6 - 9:21 with
10-min break
Start at 5:30?
Hour: 0 1 2 3+
Week: 1
Sub-course on
Sub-course
Fiber-Optic
on
Minutes per reg term Transport
Photonic
(excluding Final Exam)
= 14x3x50=2100
Switching
In summer 
2100 mins/11 wks
= 191 mins / wk

12 Comprehensive Final Exam

 Course “feel”

• Physics, electronics/devices, transport

systems, architecture - as a f(t)

architecture

transport systems
physics Devices/electronics

depth week

Self-contained; not…
 Depth
Assumed current knowledge
Knowledge level in August
Phys Elect Sys Arch
1. Superficial X
2. Conversational X*
3. Professional/Collegial X X X
4. Theory & derivations  X 
5. Full understanding Phys EE Telecom
A smart person knows a lot, but
also knows enough to be aware
of what he doesn’t know.
 Course pre/co-requisites
• “EC-1” (T2200) - necessary
– Ohm’s Law, transients (RC), bandwidth, PN
diodes, load lines, decibels (review)
– Can remediate: read “Pre-Reqs” under Syllabus
• EC-2 (T2210) - slight advantage
– Characteristics of transmission lines
– But, will use time domain and direct detection
• Telephone Switching (T2225) - will review
• Physics (even HS) - slight advantage: lenses
 Lecture slides
• Loaded onto CourseWeb (BlackBoard)
– Suggest you print out on paper before class
– Bring to class for note-taking
• Read using “slide show”
– I use a lot of “animation”
• Naming convention
– 1st letter: maintain alphabetical order
– 2nd letter: ‘f’ or ‘s’ to identify sub-course
– Middle: abbreviated description
– Number at the end: year – wait for this year’s
• Comments from prev classes on hidden slides 
 Course procedures
• Per-lecture HW assignments posted on CW/BB
– Relevant reading from texts after class
– Lots of homework, due the following week 30%
• Exceptions in advance – see the grader
• Course assignments 30%
– Lab experiment & 2 short papers
– Project - calculate & plot {link length v bit rate} ×2
• Comprehensive final exam 40%
• Numerical grade = weighted sum {hw, p/p, fx}
– Letter grade by identifying clusters of numeric grades
 The Professor
• Dr. Richard A. Thompson
– Full Professor & Chair-emeritus
– See my brief bio on CW/BB
– Primary research area
= photonic switching
• Fall 2004: sabbatical in Physics Dept
Which is the Prof &
• Also VoIP, packet stats, & auto traffic which is the student?
– Office – 717A SIS
• Open hrs Tu PM (or appt via rthompso@pitt.edu) I will discuss
– See me to clarify lectures & concepts some research
results in class
• Grader, open hrs tba in 717
– See grader to argue about HW grades
 Left Brain Right Brain
Logical Intuitive
Sequential Random
My Job? Objective Subjective
Rational Holistic
Analytical Synthesizing
• To teach you information Looks at parts Looks at wholes

– that will be useful for your career in Telecom

• But, it’s more than this…
– Left-brained & Right-brained thinking
• Two categories in each type

• Most of us – excellent • The “Anti-us”

• Most of us – good • Intuition can be “shaped”
• Other 2 are bad
– Good at details
• What most of us lack & need
– Important, but insufficient • Creativity
– Tends to be “superficial” • Integration – how things fit
(steel bricks) • See the system, the big picture
 Course structure
Hour: 0 1 2 3
Week: 1
Most material from Sub-course on
Palais’ textbook. Sub-course
Fiber-Optic
on
Some course material Transport
Photonic
+ organization/outline
comes from Chapter Switching
12 of the PLCS book.

++ material from
other parts of PLCS
& other sources N Comprehensive Final Exam
 Palais’ Book
• *Optical Fiber Communications,
– by Joseph C. Palais
– 5th ed, or map reading & exercises
• Not a “rigorous” text for EE/Physics majors
– But, it’s thorough enough & very “readable”
– Gives us “enough,” especially for 2/3 of a course
• Not well organized  We will skip around
• Not a perfect match for us (even for its 2/3)
– I will augment (especially for WDM)
– Skip any material not mentioned on a slide
– Skim some pages  Code on slides:
• “Discuss convex lenses – other types (esp, GRIN) in Palais”
• “Focal length, f = f(R1, R2, n) – eqns in Palais”

* On reserve in SIS library

 Other materials for the
Fiber Transport sub-course
• *PLCS, by 4 Pitt telecom professors
– Ch 12 & 15.4 (lecture order) – posted on CW/BB
– Also parts of Chapters 9, 10, Appendix, et al
– Buy this book if you will take 2210 in the Fall
• *Optical Telecommunications, by Kaminow & Li
• **Elements of Photonics, by Iizuka
• **Fundamentals of Photonics, by Saleh & Teich

* On reserve in SIS library

** Borrow my personal copy
 Transport subcourse

• Introduction, Rays & Waves

• Transport, Fiber, Impairments
• Sources, Detectors, Modulation
• Couplers & Connectors
• Noise & Signal-to-noise ratio
• Systems (link power budget)
• Fiber nonlinearities & dense WDM
 Course structure
Hour: 0 1 2 3
Week: 1
Sub-course on
Sub-course
Fiber-Optic
on
Transport
Photonic
Switching

N Comprehensive Final Exam

 Fiber - Introduction
• History
• Photonic communications system
– Block diagram
– Motivation & optical advantage
– Terminology
• Decibels
• Applications – skim on your own
 History
• Optical fiber - Corning Glass - 70s
Peter Schultz
– Wavelengths for optimal transparency HS yearbook pic

– Single-mode fiber  Overhaul infrastructure (overbuilt)

• Optoelectronics - LEDs & photodetectors
– At these same wavelengths  “NE Corridor”
– Semiconductor Diode Laser - Bell Labs
• Switching - reviving research topic
• Summary LAN MAN WAN
– Relatively modern Wireless electronics photonics
But, where’s the software?
– Rapid deployment Future trend: control  MAN
– We’re still doing too much in electronics
Photonic Transport System
Navigating Palais’ Book
Course progression

transmitted modu- optical input

info (dig) lator source coupler
10 6
# = chapter
12 8-9 channel
in Palais
1-5
7
received signal optical output
info processor detector coupler
11 Noise
 Motivation
Four Advantages of Optical Transport:
• Broad bandwidth
• Great distance Mutually
constrained
• Low noise
• Physical Security
 Terminology
• Optics
– Physics of Light
• Fiber-optics or Lightwave technology
– Optical fiber
– Opto-electronics (lasers & LEDs)
• Photonics & electro-optics 
 DeciBels
• Power ratio
– In dB = 10 log10 (P1/P0)
• Absolute, with respect to 1 mW
– P in dBm = 10 log10 (P1/10-3)

Optical Power
 Decibel Table
Ratio dB Ratio dB
2 3 64 18
4 6 100 20
8 9 128 21
10 +10
2 +3 160 22
10 10 200 23
16 12 256 24
20 13 512 27
32 15 1000 30
1024 30 ?
40 16
Conversion Charts
 Exercise with decibels
• Fiber link - 56 km long
– Three segments with 1-dB connectors
– 2-dB coupling loss on each end Distributed
Lumped
– Fiber attenuation = .25 dB/km
• Total loss = .25×56 + 6 = 20 dB
• Transmit laser power = 1 mW = 0 dBm
– Power at receiver = 0dBm - 20dB = -20dBm
– 1% (one photon out of 100) = 10W

 

?: dBm - dB = dBm
(Pin/mW) x (Pout/Pin) = Pout/mW
 Course Assignment
• Review Technical (JLT) paper (3 pp max)
This year: Report on
– Summary, critique, application Rate x Distance experiments.
Each student a different one.
• Write paper about application (5 pp max)
– Describe app, discuss market & technology
– Summary or original work
This year: 5-min presentation
• Project assigned later on Rate x Distance experi-
ments in the last class

• Project & papers due: day of the final exam

– Warning: don’t postpone papers that long