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Optical Fiber Communication

(EEE 4175)

Ray Theory_2

Dr. A K M Baki
Construction Of A Fiber Optic 2

Cable
Cable Jacket - The outermost layer of the fiber cable.
Strengthening fibers - The strengthening fibers that
help protect the core against damage during
installation or from being crushed.

Coating - This layer of thicker plastic surrounds the

cladding and helps protect the fiber core.
Cladding - The layer that protects the core and
causes the necessary reflection to allow light to travel
through the fiber-core segment.
Core - The physical component that transports the
optical data signal, made up of a continuous strand of
glass (e.g. silica). The core's diameter is measured in
microns.

Fiber-optic cables are also available in flat ribbon form.

Construction Of A Submarine 3

Fiber Optic Cable

1. Polyethylene.
2. "Mylar" tape.
3. Stranded steel wires.
4. Aluminum water barrier.
5. Polycarbonate.
6. Copper or aluminum tube.
7. Petroleum jelly.
8. Optical fibers.
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Propagation Modes
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Fibers With Different Indices

A step index cable cross section. Graded index cable cross section.
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Propagation Modes

Index
profile
?

Index
profile
?

Index
profile
?
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Fiber Types
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Silica Fiber Optic Cables

Both the core and the cladding are made from a type of glass
known as silica (SiO2) which is almost transparent in the visible
and near-IR.
If the refractive index changes in a ‘step’ between the core
and the cladding, the fiber structure is known as step-index
fiber.
If the refractive index changes ‘gradually’ between the core
and the cladding, the fiber structure is known as graded-index
fiber.
The higher core refractive index (~ 0.3% higher) is typically
obtained by doping the silica core with germanium dioxide
(GeO2).
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Acceptance Angle
The maximum angle at which external light rays may
strike the air/glass interface and still propagate down
the fiber.
Eventually lost by radiation

Acceptance
cone θc

θa Core(refractive index n1)

Conical half
angle Cladding(refractive index n2)

Air
(refractive index na)
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Acceptance Angle
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Numerical Aperture (NA)

According to Snell’s Law:

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Numerical Aperture (NA)

Acceptance Angle:
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Numerical Aperture (NA)

Numerical Aperture 14

(NA):Example
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Example: Senior
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Numerical Aperture (NA)

Developing ways for fiber to collect light efficiently was an important early
step in developing practical fiber optic communications (particularly in the
1970s)

It seems logical to have optical fibers with NA as large as possible …

with as large Δ as possible … in order to couple maximum amount of
light into the fiber.

We will find out later that such large-NA fibers tend to be “multimode” and
are unsuitable for high-speed communications because of a limitation
known as modal dispersion.

Relatively small-NA fibers are therefore used for high-speed optical

communication systems.
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Typical NA of Fibers

Silica fibers for long-haul transmission are designed to have numerical

apertures from about 0.1 to 0.3. The low NA makes coupling efficiency
tend to be poor, but turns out to improve the fiber’s bandwidth! (details
later)

Plastic, rather than glass, fibers are available for short-haul

communications (e.g. within an automobile). These fibers are restricted
to short lengths because of the relatively high attenuation in plastic
materials.

Plastic optical fibers (POFs) are designed to have high numerical

apertures (typically, 0.4 – 0.5) to improve coupling efficiency, and so
partially offset the high propagation losses and also enable alignment
tolerance.
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Suggested Books

1. John M. Senior, ‘Optical Fiber Communications -

Principles and Practice’, Prentice Hall, Latest Edition.
2.   Gerd Keiser, ‘Optical Fiber Communications’, McGraw-
Hill, Latest Edition.
3. Govind P. Agrawal, ‘Fiber-Optic Communication Systems’,
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Latest Edition.