VISVESVARAYA TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

JNANA SANAGAMA, BELGAUM – 590014

SUBJECT: FIBER OPTICS AND NETWOKS

COLLABORATIVE ASSIGNMENT
TOPIC: ISOLATORS AND CIRCULATORS
SUBMITTED BY:
BHARGAV KODALI - 1JS17EC025
CHANDAN B NOOLI - 1JS17EC026
CHANDANA L V - 1JS17EC027
CHETHANA S R - 1JS17EC028
CHIDANANDA L P - 1JS17EC029

JSS ACADEMY OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION

BENGALURU – 560060
DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING
Isolators and Circulators

In a number of applications it is desirable

to have a passive optical device that is
nonreciprocal; that is, it works differently
when its inputs and outputs are reversed.
Two examples of such a device are
isolators and circulators.
 Optical Isolators
• Optical isolators are devices that allow light to pass
through them in only one direction.
• This is important in a number of instances to prevent
scattered or reflected light from traveling in the reverse
direction.
• One common application of an optical isolator is to keep
such backward-traveling light from entering a laser diode
and possibly causing instabilities in the optical output.
• Many design configurations of varying complexity exist for
optical isolators.
• The simple ones depend on the state of polarization of
the input light.
Design and operation of a polarization-independent isolator made of
three miniature optical components
 Optical Isolator working
• The core of the device consists of a 45° Faraday rotator that is placed between two wedge-
shaped birefringent plates or walk-off polarizers.
• These plates consist of a material such as YVO4 or TiO2, Light traveling in the forward
direction is separated into ordinary and extraordinary rays by the first birefringent plate.
• The Faraday rotator then rotates the polarization plane of each ray by 45°.
• After exiting the Faraday rotator, the two rays pass through the second birefringent plate.
• The axis of this polarizer plate is oriented in such a way that the relationship between the
two types of rays is maintained.
• Thus, when they exit the polarizer, they both are refracted in an identical parallel
direction.
• Consequently, the rays diverge when they exit the left-hand birefringent plate and are not
coupled to the fiber anymore.
Table below lists some operational characteristics of commercially
available isolators. The packages have similar configurations as the tap
coupler shown in Fig.
 Optical Circulators
• An optical circulator is a nonreciprocal
multiport passive device that directs light
sequentially from port to port in only one
direction.
• This device is used in optical amplifiers,
add/drop multiplexers, and dispersion
compensation modules.
• The operation of a circulator is similar to that
of an isolator except that its construction is
more complex.
• Typically it consists of a number of walk-off
polarizers, half-wave plates, and Faraday
rotators and has three or four ports.
Operational concept of a three port circulator
Working of circular isolator
Table below lists some operational characteristics of
commercially available circulators.