Optical Fiber Communication

:Lecture 1

Optical Fiber Communication: An Overview

Dr. Ghusoon Mohsin Ali

M.Sc. in Electronics & Communication

Department of Electrical Engineering
College of Engineering
Al-Mustansiriya University
1
INTRODUCTION

Fiber-Optic Communication is the most modern and advanced

mode of data communication (not more than 60 years ago).
Fiber optics has revolutionized the way we receive information
and communicate with one another, and it has played a major
role in leading in the Information Age. Since the communication
scientists were in an incessant search of a wideband and low-
loss medium of data communication which could be used at
high data rates with the least amount of lost possible.
 HISTORY
The first revolution in the communication came when
Sir Alexander Graham Bell successfully converted voice
signals into electrical signals which were transmitted on
electrical wires and then converted back to voice
signals.
Right from this time there has been a continuously
increasing need of bandwidth for communication due to
continuously increasing number of users.
ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM

Fig. 1.1 ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM

Fig. 1.2
H.W
 HISTORY
 Initial communications started at lower operating frequencies
(f0) of about 30MHz (low bandwidths (BW)). Since then the f0
have drastically increased due to large requirements in BW.
 The medium of transmission that were used for f0 up to about
1GHz were coaxial cables. These cables had a loss figure of
about 20dB/km.
 Waveguides basically hollow structures which guide the
electromagnetic energy from one point to another through
them. But the f0 further increased to few hundreds of gigahertz .
 Hence this led to a strong need of a search for other
alternatives The idea was that, optical frequencies
 HISTORY
This new communication should answer two questions;
• Whether or not there are transmitters and receivers
available for this new communication technology?
•Whether or not there exists such a wideband and loss-less
medium for carrying optical signals & conversely, photons
control the flow of electrons.
History of attenuation
The figure shows the loss profiles
of manufactured glass in the early
1970s, 80s and 90s.
In the 1970s, wavelength of 800
nm, GaAs LASERs also were
invented which usintrinsically is
capable of emitting light of
wavelength 800nm. it is called as
the “First Window” of optical
communication.
Optical communications were
now shifted to these regions and
were called as the “Second
Window” and “Third Window” of
optical communication. today,
most of the optical transmission
take place in the 1550nm Fig. 1.4: History of Attenuation
graph in the manufacture of glass
 CHARACTERISTICS OF LIGHT
In this course, we will treat light in the following three models:

Ray Model
 Wave Model
 Quantum Model
CHARACTERIZATION OF A LIGHT SOURCE
A source of light can be characterized by the following factors:

Intensity of the light: is defined as the power per unit solid angle.
Wavelength of Light (λ): If we look into figure 1.4, the choice of
wavelength of transmission has a direct relation to the SNR of the
transmission.
Spectral Width of Source (Δλ): It is the range of wavelengths emitted by
the source. That is, if we have a source with a wide spectral width, say for
example if it emits all the wavelengths ranging from blue to red, we get a light
from the source which will look like white light. If we reduce the spectral
width to near red, we would get a sharp red color light. Smaller the value of
Δλ more will be the purity of the source and also higher would be the data
rate of the source (higher bandwidth) .
 The electromagnetic wave
If the dimensions of the medium of propagation are very large
compared to the wavelength of the light, light can be
considered as a transverse electromagnetic (TEM) wave. This
means that the direction of electric field, direction of magnetic
field and the direction of propagation of light are mutually
perpendicular to one another according to the right hand
thumb rule as shown in figure 1.8.

Fig. 1.8 : TEM nature of Light

The electric and magnetic fields of light are hence related to each other
through the medium parameter η which is called the intrinsic impedance of
the medium. That is,

E0 x 
  [ ]
H0y 
Where,
η= intrinsic impedance of medium
|E0x| = magnitude of electric field E.
|H0y| =magnitude of magnetic field H.
μ = Permeability of the medium. [H/m]
ε = Permittivity of the medium. [F/m]

So, if the electric field is known completely, the magnitude of magnetic field can
be determined using the above relation and its direction would be perpendicular
to the direction of electric field. The behavior of the electric field as a function of
time is called the polarization of light.
 Polarization
Polarization is one of the very important parameters of any
electromagnetic wave. It is a quantity which illustrates the vector nature
of light unlike other quantities like intensity, wavelength and spectral
width which show scalar nature of light. It shows that light is made up of
varying electric and magnetic fields which are vector quantities. If we
look at the locus of the tip of the electric field vector with respect to time,
this locus gives the polarization of the wave. There may be different
shapes that the tip of the electric field vector can trace with respect to
time. Based on these shapes there are different types of polarization
which are called as the states of polarization;

 Linear Polarization
 Elliptical Polarization
Circular Polarization
 Random Polarization

Linear and circular polarizations are special cases of elliptical

polarization
Light as a Wave
• Light is a transverse electromagnetic wave, composed of an electric
field and a magnetic field.
• As a vector description

E x ( z , t )  ex E0 x cos(t  kz )
 Electric field points in the x direction.
 Wave is propagating in the z direction.
ω is angular frequency and found by:
2c
  2f 

k is propagation constant and found by:

2 2f 
k   Fig. 1.9: Field distributions
 c c in plane E&M waves
Polarization Has an Orientation

From the figure we can clearly see that

the electric field vector E traces out
line with respect to time and so the
light is said to be linear polarized.
 General form of linearly polarized plane waves
Any two orthogonal plane waves
Can be combined into a linearly
Polarized wave. Conversely, any
arbitrary linearly polarized wave
can be resolved into two
independent Orthogonal plane
waves that are in phase.

E x ( z , t )  e x E0 x cos(wt  kz ) 2.2((

E y ( z , t )  e y E0 y cos( wt  kz   ) 2.3((

• Consider a slightly more general

Ey wave: where δ is
relative wave difference with
respect to the Ex wave.

Fig. 1-10: Linearly polarized

E ( z, t )  E x ( z, t )  E y ( z, t ) waves
General Linear Polarization
E ( z , t )  ex E0 x cos(t  kz )  e y E0 y cos(t  kz  0)
When δ is 0 or a multiple of π,
then this is always linear

• Has an angle with respect to

the X-axis under this condition
given by: E0 y
tan  
E0 x
•This is called the orientation
of polarization
•The magnitude of this wave is:
2 2
E E E 0x 0y
 Circular Polarization
E ( z , t )  ex E0 x cos(t  kz )  e y E0 y cos(t  kz   / 2)
When Amplitudes are
equal and δ is π/2
then we call this circularly
polarized
Traces a circle in the XY •
plane
Has NO orientation angle •

Circular polarization : E0 x  E0 y  E0

&  
2
 : right circularly polarized, Fig. 1-11: Circular polarized
- : left circularly polarized waves
 General Elliptical Polarization
When Amplitudes and δ are arbitrary values, then we call this
most general case elliptically polarized
• Traces an ellipse in the XY plane
• Still has an orientation angle (now called α)
• But now also has property called ellipticity
E  e x Ex  e y E y
 e x E 0 x cos(ωt  kz )  e y cos(ωt  kz   )
2 2
 Ex   Ey    E 
      2 E x  y  cos   sin 2 
   E  E 
 E0 x  E0 y   0 x  0 y 
2 E 0 x E 0 y cos 
tan( 2 )  2 2
E0 x  E0 y 2.8((

Fig. 1.12: Elliptically polarized light

 Final Comments on Polarization
•Light from many sources is unpolarized (incandescent
lamp, sun, LEDs). Incoherent lights in general do not have any
kind of polarization and are said to be randomly polarized.
This means random E-field.
• Polarized light has the E-field pointing in same direction
for all photons.
• Note that light can be partially polarized (in between
the above extremes)
• Polarization describes two things:
– (a) the direction of the electric field (orientation)
– (b) the rotation of the electric field (ellipticity)
• Any polarization state can be broken down into two
ORTHOGONAL polarizations
 1. “Optical Fiber Communication”- G.
Keiser, McGraw Hill, 4rd edition 2009.

H.W
 WAVE-MODEL OF LIGHT
The wave function is a generalized function of space (x)
and time (t).

j ( t   x )
 ( x, t )  Ae (2.2)

Where,
A= Amplitude of the wave.
ω = Angular Frequency of the wave (radian/second)
β = Phase Constant (Radian/metre)

The term (ωt-βx) is the phase function of ψ(x,t). Thus the phase
of the wave is a function of space and time.
H.W
 RAY-MODEL OF LIGHT
 e.g. a point source (like a stone dropped in water)
 Light is emitted in all directions as a spherical wave –
series of crests and troughs forming spherical wavefronts
 Distance between adjacent crests is the wavelength λ

Fig. 2.2: Spherical and plane wave fronts

 Plane waves and their associated rays

Light-rays are imaginary lines that determine the direction of

propagation of light energy.
Spherical waves – wavefronts are spherical (rays are
perpendicular to the wavefronts)
Plane waves – wavefronts are planes (rays are perpendicular
to plane wavefronts in the direction of propagation)
Spherical waves from a point source at a far distance from an
observer appears as a plane wave
 Refractive index
• Refractive index of a medium is defined as:

c velocity of light (EM wave) in vacuum 

n    r r
v velocity of light (EM wave) in medium  0 0
r : Relative magnetic permeability
r : Relative electric permittivity
• For non-magnetic media (  r  1) : n  r
e.g. For air and gases, v ~ c, so that n ~ 1. At optic frequencies, the
refractive index of water is 1.33.

e.g. Glass has many compositions, each with a slightly different n. An

approximate refractive index of 1.5 is representative for the silica
glasses used in fibers; more precise values for these glasses lie between
~1.45 and ~1.48.
 Optical fiber
 Constructional, an optical fiber is a solid cylindrical glass rod called the
core, through which light in the form of optical signals propagates. This
rod is surrounded by another coaxial cylindrical shell made of glass of
lower refractive index called the cladding
 The diameter of the cladding is of the order of 125 μm and the diameter
of the core is even smaller than that.
 The light propagates inside the core-cladding arrangement and
throughout the length of the fiber by a phenomenon called the Total
Internal Reflection of light. This phenomenon occurs only when the
refractive index of core is greater than the refractive index of cladding. .

Fig. 2.3: Constructional Details of an Optical Fiber

Launching of light into an optical fiber
If a ray of light is incident on the core of an optical fiber from
the side, the ray of light simply refracts out from the fiber on the
other side. Any light that enters the fiber from the side does not
propagate along the fiber.
The only option thus available with us is to launch the light
through the tip of the fiber..

.Figure 2.4: Launching of light into an optical fiber

Q: If a partial reflection at the core-cladding interface
suffices the propagation of light along the fiber over long
distances?
NO, the reason is that, at each reflection a part of the
optical energy launched into the optical fiber would be lost
and after a certain distance along the length of the fiber the
optical power would be negligibly low to be of any use.
 Thus Total Internal Reflection is an absolute necessity at
each reflection for a sustained propagation of optical energy
over long distance along the optical fiber. This is the sole
reason of launching light into the fiber at particular angles so
that light energy propagates along the fiber by multiple total
internal reflections at the core-cladding interface.
1. “FIBER OPTICS”- Prof. R.K. Shevgaonkar Indian Institute of
Technology, Handout.
2.“Optical Fiber Communication”- G. Keiser, McGraw Hill, 4rd edition 2009.
3.“Optical Fiber Communications”- J.M. Senior, Prentice Hall, Englewood
Cliffs, NJ, 2nd edition 1992.
Thank you