FIBER OPTIC

COMMUNICATION
 Unit-1

Overview
of
Optical Fiber Communication
Unit-1
Contents-Part-A
Overview of Optical Fiber Communication
– Introduction
– General system
– Advantages and Disadvantages
– Applications of optical fiber communication
– Ray theory
– Single mode and Multi-mode fibers
– Cut-off wavelength
– Mode field diameter
Unit-1
Contents-Part-B
• Transmission Characteristics of Optical Fibers
– Introduction
– Attenuation
– Absorption
– Scattering losses
– Bending losses
– Dispersion
• Intra model dispersion
• Inter model dispersion
 Introduction
• An optical Fiber is a thin, flexible, transparent Fiber that
acts as a waveguide, or "light pipe", to transmit light
between the two ends of the Fiber.

• Optical fibers are widely used in Fiber-optic

communications, which permits transmission over
longer distances and at higher bandwidths (data rates)
than other forms of communication.

• Fibers are used instead of metal wires because signals

travel along them with less loss and are also immune to
electromagnetic interference.
Introduction
• First generation
– The first generation of light wave systems uses
GaAs semiconductor laser and operating region
was near 0.8 μm. Other specifications of this
generation are as under:
• Bit rate : 45 Mb/s
• Repeater spacing : 10 km
Introduction
• Second generation
– Bit rate: 100 Mb/s to 1.7 Gb/s
– Repeater spacing: 50 km
– Operation wavelength: 1.3 μm
– Semiconductor: In GaAsP

• Third generation
– Bit rate : 10 Gb/s
– Repeater spacing: 100 km
– Operating wavelength: 1.55 μm
 Introduction
• Fourth generation
– Fourth generation uses WDM technique.
– Bit rate: 10 Tb/s
– Repeater spacing: > 10,000 km
– Operating wavelength: 1.45 to 1.62 μm
• Fifth generation
Fifth generation uses Roman amplification technique
and optical solitiors.
– Bit rate: 40 - 160 Gb/s
– Repeater spacing: 24000 km - 35000 km
– Operating wavelength: 1.53 μm to 1.57 μm
General system
• Basic block diagram of optical fiber communication
system consists of following important blocks.
– Transmitter
– Information channel
– Receiver
General system
General system
• The light beam pulses are fed into a fiber – optic
cable where they are transmitted over long distances.
• At the receiving end, a light sensitive device known
as a photocell or light detector is used to detect the
light pulses.
• This photocell or photo detector converts the light
pulses into an electrical signal.
• The electrical pulses are amplified and reshaped back
into digital form.
General system
• Fiber Optic Cable consists of four parts.
• Core
• Cladding
• Buffer
• Jacket Core
General system
• Core
– The core of a fiber cable is a cylinder of plastic that runs all
along the fiber cable’s length, and offers protection by cladding.

– The diameter of the core depends on the application used. Due

to internal reflection, the light travelling within the core reflects
from the core, the cladding boundary.

– The core cross section needs to be a circular one for most of the
applications.
General system
• Cladding

– Cladding is an outer optical material that protects the core.

– The main function of the cladding is that it reflects the

light back into the core.

– When light enters through the core (dense material) into

the cladding (less dense material), it changes its angle, and
then reflects back to the core.
General system
• Buffer

– The main function of the buffer is to protect the

fiber from damage and thousands of optical fibers
arranged in hundreds of optical cables.

– These bundles are protected by the cable’s outer

covering that is called jacket.
General system
• Jacket

– Fiber optic cable’s jackets are available in different colors

that can easily make us recognize the exact color of the
cable we are dealing with.

– The color yellow clearly signifies a single mode cable, and

orange color indicates multimode.
General system
• Both the light sources at the sending end and the light
detectors on the receiving end must be capable of
operating at the same data rate.
• The circuitry that drives the light source and the
circuitry that amplifies and processes the detected light
must both have suitable high-frequency response.
• The fiber itself must not distort the high-speed light
pulses used in the data transmission.
• They are fed to a decoder, such as a Digital to Analog
converter (D/A), where the original voice or video is
recovered.
 General system
• In very long transmission systems, repeater units must be
used along the way.
• Since the light is greatly attenuated when it travels over
long distances, at some point it may be too weak to be
received reliably.
• To overcome this problem, special relay stations are used to
pick up light beam, convert it back into electrical pulses that
are amplified and then retransmit the pulses on another beam.

• But despite the attenuation problem, the loss is less than

the loss that occurs with the electric cables.
Advantages of Optical Fiber Communication

• Wide bandwidth
• Low losses
• Immune to cross-talk
• Interference Immune
• Lightweight
• Small size
• More strength
• Security
• Long-distance transmission
• Environment immune
• Safe and easy installation
Advantages of Optical Fiber Communication

Wide bandwidth: The lightwave occupies the frequency

range between 2×1012 Hz to 3.7×1012 Hz. Thus the
information-carrying capability of fiber optic cables is much
higher.
Low losses: Fiber optic cables offers very little signal
attenuation over long distances. Typically It is less than 1
dB/km. This enables a longer distance between repeaters.
Immune to cross-talk: Fiber optic cables have very high
immunity to the electrical and magnetic fields. Since fiber
optic cables are non-conductors of electricity hence they do
not produce the magnetic field. Thus fiber optic cables are
immune to cross-talk between cables caused by magnetic
induction.
Advantages of Optical Fiber Communication

Interference Immune: Fiber optic cables are immune to conductive and

radiative interferences caused by electrical noise sources such as
lighting, electric motors, fluorescent lights.

Lightweight: As fiber cables are made of silica glass or plastic which is

much lighter than copper or aluminum cables. Lightweight fiber cables
are cheaper to transport.

Small size: The diameter of the fiber is much smaller compared to other
cables, therefore file cable is small in size, requires less storage space.

More strength: Fiber cables are stronger and rugged hence can support
more weight.
Advantages of Optical Fiber Communication

Security: Fiber cables are more secure than other cables.

It is almost impossible to tap into a fiber cable as they do
not radiate a signal. No ground loops exist between optical
fibers hence they are more secure.

Long-distance transmission: Because of less attenuation

transmission at a longer distance possible.

Environment immune: Fiber cables are more immune to

environmental extremes. They can operate over a large
temperature variation. Also, they are not affected by
corrosive liquids and gases.
Advantages of Optical Fiber Communication

Safe and easy installation:

Fiber cables are safer and easier to install and
maintain.

They are non-conductors hence there are no shock

hazards as no current or voltage is associated with
them.

Their small size and lightweight feature make

installation easier.
Disadvantages of Optical Fiber Communication

• High initial cost

• Maintenance and repairing cost
• Joining and test procedures
• Tensile stress
• Short links
• Fiber losses
Disadvantages of Optical Fiber Communication

High initial cost: The initial cost of installation or set

up costs is very high compared to all other systems.

Maintenance and repairing cost: The maintenance

and repairing of fiber optic systems are not only
difficult but expensive also.

Joining and test procedures: Since optical fibers are of

very small size. The fiber joining process is very costly
and requires skilled manpower.
Disadvantages of Optical Fiber Communication

Tensile stress: Optical fibers are more susceptible to

buckling, bending and tensile stress than copper cables.
This leads to restricted practice to use optical fiber
technology to premises and floor backbones with a few
interfaces to the copper cables.

Short links: Even though optical fiber cables are

inexpensive, it is still not cost-effective to replace every
small conventional connector (e.g. between computers
and peripherals), as the price of optoelectronic
transducers is very high.
Disadvantages of Optical Fiber Communication

• Fiber losses: The amount of optical fiber available to

the photodetector at the end of fiber length depends
on various fiber losses such as scattering, dispersion,
attenuation, and reflections.
Applications of OFC
• Applications of optical fiber communications include
telecommunications, data communications, video
control, and protection switching, sensors and power
applications.

• Telephone networks:
Optical waveguide has low attenuation, high
transmission bandwidth compared to copper lines,
therefore numbers of long haul co-axial trunks links
between telephone exchanges are being replaced by
optical fiber links.
Applications of OFC
• Urban broadband service networks:
Optical waveguide provides much larger bandwidth
than co-axial cable, also the number of repeaters
required is reduced considerably.

Modem suburban communications involve videotext,

videoconferencing videotelephony, switched
broadband communication network.
 Ray Optics
• In a homogeneous medium, light rays are straight
lines. Light may be absorbed or reflected.

• Reflected ray lies in the plane of incidence and angle

of incidence will be equal to the angle of reflection.

• At the boundary between two media of different

refractive indices, the refracted ray will lie in the plane
of incidence.

• Snell’s Law will give the relationship between the

angles of incidence and refraction.
Refraction of Light
• As a light ray passes from one transparent medium to
another, it changes direction; this phenomenon is
called Refraction of light.
• How much that light ray changes its direction
depends on the Refractive index of the mediums.
 Refractive Index (n)
• A fundamental optical parameter of a material is the
refractive index (or index of refraction).
• In free space a light wave travels at a speed c = 3 x 10 8 m/s.
The speed of light is related to the frequency v and the
wavelength λ by c = vλ.
• Upon entering a dielectric or nonconducting medium the
wave now travels at a speed , which is characteristic of the
material and is less than c.
• The ratio of the speed of light in a vacuum to that in matter
is the index of refraction n of the material and is given by
n=
The value of n are, 1 for air, 1.33 for water, 1.45 for Silica
glass and 2.42 for diamond.
 Reflection & Refraction

n1 is higher denser medium

n2 is lower denser medium or (rarer medium)
Snell’s Law
• When light passes from one transparent material to
another, it bends according to Snell's law which is
defined as :
n1 sin(θ1 ) = n2 sin(θ2 )
where:

• n1 is the refractive index of the medium the light

is leaving.

• n2 is the refractive index of the material the light

is entering.

• θ1 is the incident angle between the light beam

and the normal (normal is 90° to the interface
between two materials).

• θ2 is the refractive angle between the light ray and

the normal.
Critical Angle
• When a light ray passes from denser medium
to rarer medium the angle of incidence for
which the angle of refraction becomes 90 o is
called “Critical angle”
Since
n1 sin(θ1) = n2 sin(θ2 )
n1 sin(θ1) = n2 sin(90o )
n1 sin(θ1) = n2
then
θc = θ1 = sin-1
Total Internal Reflection:
• The phenomenon in which a
light ray gets totally reflected
back when angle of
incidence is greater than the
critical angle, on a boundary
across which refractive index
decreases is called total
internal reflection.
 Acceptance Angle (θacc)
• Acceptance angle is defined as the maximum angle that a light ray can
have relative to the axis of the fiber, so that it can propagate down the
fiber.

• It means that with which angle light ray should enter into the fiber to
execute total internal reflection.
or
• Acceptance angle is defined as the maximum external incidence angle
for which the light will propagate in the fiber.
acc =sin
-1

• Where
no is the refractive index of the medium around the fiber. For in
case of air no=1
n1 is the refractive index of the fiber core
n2 is the refractive index of the cladding
 Cone of acceptance (ϴA)
• The light rays contained within the cone having a
full angle 2ϴacc are accepted and transmitted
along the fiber. Therefore the cone is called
“Acceptance cone”
Fractional refractive index=
Fiber Optic Modes
• Mode is the one which describes the nature of
propagation of electromagnetic waves in a wave
guide, i.e. it is the allowed direction whose
associated angles satisfy the conditions for total
internal reflection and constructive interference.

• Based on the number of modes that propagates

through the optical fiber, they are classified as:
– SINGLE MODE FIBERS
– MULTI MODE FIBERS
 Single Mode Fibers

• In a fiber, if only one mode is transmitted

through it, then it is said to be a single mode
fiber.
• A typical single mode fiber may have a core
radius of 3 μm and a numerical aperture of 0.1
at a wavelength of 0.8 μm.
• The condition for the single mode operation is
given by the V number of the fiber which is
defined as such that V ≤ 2.405.
 V Number Definition
• V Number determines how many modes a fiber
supports.
• An important parameter connected with the cutoff
condition is the V Number defined by

a is the core radius

NA is the numerical aperture
λ is the wavelength

Normalized Frequency
 Single Mode Fibers

• Only One Path is available.

• V-number is less than 2.405
• Core diameter is Small
• No dispersion
• Higher band width (1000 MHz)
• Used for Long Distance Communication
• Fabrication is Difficult and Costly
Multimode fibers
• If more than one mode is transmitted through optical
fiber, then it is said to be a MULTIMODE FIBER.

• The LARGER CORE RADII of multimode fibers

make it easier to launch optical power into the fiber
and facilitate the end to end connection of similar
powers.

• Some of the basic properties of multimode optical

fibers are listed below :
– More than one path is available
– V-number is greater than 2.405
Advantage of Single Mode Fiber over Multi Mode
Fiber
 CUT-OFF WAVELENGTH
The wavelength below which multiple modes of light can
propagated along a particular fiber, i.e.,

λ >=λc for single mode.

λ < λc for multi mode.

 Mode Field Diameter (MFD)
• Mode field diameter is a measure of light intensity
in a single mode fiber cross section.
• Mode field diameter as the effective area of the
fiber, is larger than the core with light also
propagating through a portion of the cladding.
 Unit-1
Contents-Part-B

Transmission Characteristics
Of
Optical Fibers
 Various Losses in Optical Fiber

• Attenuation losses

• Absorption losses

• Scattering losses

• Bending losses

• Dispersion losses

• Coupling losses
 Attenuation losses

Attenuation losses
 Attenuation losses takes place due to couplers,
splicers, connectors, fiber itself. Attenuation varies
which wavelength of light.

 It also called as signal loss or fiber loss. It also decides

the number of repeaters required between transmitter
and receiver.
 Attenuation losses

 Attenuation of a light signal as it propagates along a

fiber is an important consideration in the design of an
optical communication system; the degree of
attenuation plays a major role in determining the
maximum transmission distance between a transmitter
and a receiver or an in-line amplifier.

 The basic attenuation mechanisms in a fiber are

absorption, scattering, and radiative losses of the
optical energy.
 Attenuation losses

 Absorption is related to the fiber material, whereas

scattering is associated both with the fiber material
and with structural imperfections in the optical
waveguide.

 Attenuation owing to radiative effects originates

from perturbations (both microscopic and
macroscopic) of the fiber geometry.
 Attenuation losses

 As light travels along a fiber, its power decreases

exponentially with distance.

 If P(0) is the optical power in a fiber at the origin (at

z = 0), then the power P(z) at a distance z farther
down the fiber is
 …………..(1)

Where

……………………(2)

is the fiber attenuation coefficient

………….(3)

This parameter is generally referred to as the fiber loss or the

fiber attenuation.
 Absorption losses
Absorption losses: Absorption losses is a natural
property of glass itself. Losses due to absorption is very
large in UV and in infrared regions. It is due to
impurities in the fiber material.
or
Absorption is the way by which the energy of a photon
is taken up by matter, typically the electrons of an
atom. Thus the light energy is transformed to other
forms of energy for example, to heat.
 Absorption losses
Absorption is caused by three different mechanisms:

1. Absorption by atomic defects in the glass composition.

2. Extrinsic absorption by impurity atoms in the glass

material.

3. Intrinsic absorption by the basic constituent atoms of the

fiber material.
 Absorption losses
Atomic defects are imperfections in the atomic structure
of the fiber mate rial.

Examples of these defects include missing molecules,

high-density clusters of atom groups, or oxygen defects
in the glass structure.

Usually, absorption losses arising from these defects are

negligible compared with intrinsic and impurity
absorption effects.
Absorption losses are two types:

 Intrinsic absorption
 Extrinsic absorption
 Intrinsic Absorption

 Intrinsic absorption is associated with the basic fiber

material (e.g., pure SiO2) and is the principal physical
factor that defines the transparency window of a
material over a specified spectral region.

 Intrinsic absorption sets the fundamental lower limit on

absorption for any particular material.

 It is defined as the absorption that occurs when the

material is in a perfect state with no density variations,
impurities, or material inhomogeneities.
Intrinsic Absorption
 For calculating ultraviolet absorptions

Where
 x is fibers that are doped with percent
 λ is the wavelength

For calculating infrared absorption

 Extrinsic absorption

Extrinsic absorption is caused by impurities introduced

into the fiber material.

Trace metal impurities, such as iron, nickel, and

chromium, are introduced into the fiber during
fabrication.

Extrinsic absorption is caused by the electronic transition

of these metal ions from one energy level to another.
 Scattering losses
 Scattering losses in glass arise from microscopic
variations in the material density, from compositional
fluctuations, and from structural inhomogeneities or
defects occurring during fiber manufacture.
 Scattering in optical fiber is a process which is caused
by the interaction of phonons within the glass itself.
 Glass is composed of a randomly connected network
of molecules.
 Such a structure naturally contains regions in which
the molecular density is either higher or lower than the
average density in the glass.

 In addition, since glass is made up of several oxides,

such as SiO2, GeO2, and P2O5, compositional
fluctuations can occur.

 These two effects give rise to refractive-index

variations that occur within the glass over distances
that are small compared with the wavelength.

 These index variations cause a Rayleigh-type

scattering of the light.
Scattering losses are two types
 Linear scattering loss
 Nonlinear scattering losses
Linear Scattering:

 It causes the transfer of some or all of the optical

power contained within one propagating mode to be
transferred linearly into a different mode.
 With all linear process there is no change of
frequency on scattering.

Non linear Scattering:

 The nonlinear scattering effects in optical fibers are

due to the inelastic scattering of a photon to a lower
energy photon.
 The energy difference is absorbed by the molecular
vibrations or phonons in the medium.
For SINGLE-COMPONENT glass the scattering loss is

Where,
n is the refractive index
kB is Boltzmann’s constant = 1.38 x10-23JK-1
ꞵT is the isothermal compressibility of the material
Fictive temperature Tf is the temperature at which the density fluctuations
are frozen into the glass as it solidifies.

or

where p is the photoelastic coefficient

For MULTI-COMPONENT glasses the scattering

where the square of the mean-square refractive-index fluctuation

(∂n2 ) 2 over a volume of ∂V is

Where
∂p is the density fluctuation
∂Ci , is the concentration fluctuation of the ith glass component.
The factors ∂n2 /∂r and ∂n2 /∂Ci are the variations of the square of the index with
respect to the density and the ith glass component, respectively.
Rayleigh scattering
Rayleigh scattering follows a characteristic λ-4 dependence,
it decreases dramatically with increasing wavelength.
 For wavelengths below about 1 µm it is the dominant
loss mechanism in a fiber and gives the attenuation-
versus-wavelength plots their characteristic downward
trend with increasing wavelength.
 At wavelengths longer than 1 µm, infrared absorption
effects tend to dominate optical signal attenuation.
 The losses of
multimode fibers
are generally
higher than those
of single-mode
fibers.
Mie Scattering (Linear Scattering):

Mie scattering occurs in inhomogeneities such as core-

cladding refractive index variations over the length of
the fiber, impurities at the core-cladding interface,
strains or bubbles in the fiber, or diameter fluctuations.
 Bending losses:
Bending losses: The losses which exists when the optical
fiber undergoes bending is called bending losses.

Bending losses are two types:

• Macroscopic bending

• Microscopic bending
 Macroscopic bending:
Macroscopic bending: This loss is due to the bending
of the fiber cable a corners. This loss is caused by light
escaping into the cladding.
The amount of Optical Radiation from a bent fiber
depends on the field strength at xc and on the radius of
curvature R.
Since higher-order modes are bound
less tightly to the fiber core than lower
order modes, the higher-order modes
will radiate out of the fiber first.

Thus the total number of modes that can be supported by a

curved fiber is less than in a straight fiber.

The following expression has been derived for the

effective number of modes Meff that are guided by a curved
multimode fiber of radius a:
 where
a defines the graded-index profile
D is the core-cladding index difference
n2 is the cladding refractive index
k = 2p/l is the wave propagation constant
and

is the total number of modes in a straight fiber.

 Microscopic Bending
Microscopic (Slight) bending: During the manufacture
process of the fiber microscopic irregularities are
formed, or by nonuniform lateral pressures created
during the cabling of the fiber.
 When light propagates through this fiber, the light
rays are spread in many directions cause loss of the
light.
 An increase in attenuation results from microbending
because the fiber curvature causes repetitive coupling
of energy between the guided modes and the leaky or
nonguided modes in the fiber.

 One method of minimizing microbending losses is by

extruding a compressible jacket over the fiber.

 When external forces are applied to this configuration,

the jacket will be deformed but the fiber will tend to
stay relatively straight.
 For a multimode graded-index fiber having a core
radius a, outer radius b (excluding the jacket), and
index difference D.
 The microbending loss αM of a jacketed fiber is
reduced from that of an unjacketed fiber by a factor

Where Ef and Ej are the Young’s modulus of the jacket

and fiber, respectively.
 Core and Cladding Losses
Since the core and cladding have different indices of
refraction and therefore differ in composition, the core
and cladding generally have different attenuation
coefficients, denoted α1 and α2, respectively.

If the influence of modal coupling is ignored, the loss for

a mode of order (v, m) for a step-index waveguide is

Where,
Fractional power flow in the cladding of a step-index
optical fiber as a function of V
M is the total number of modes entering the fiber
Core and Cladding Losses
 Dispersion:
 Dispersion: Dispersion is a phenomenon related to the
variation in velocity of different frequencies or
different modes.
 The velocity of different frequencies can be different
due to intrinsic properties of the medium.
 Due to dispersion when the optical pulses travel along
the fiber they broaden.
 As the pulses travel on the fiber due to broadening,
slowly they started overlapping with each other.
Consequently, the AC content of the signal reduces
and the DC content of the signal increases.
 After a certain distance the pulses barely remain
distinguishable. If the signal propagates further the
pulses close their identity and the data is lost.
 Intra-modal or Chromatic dispersion
 An intramodal dispersion, is a category of dispersion
that occurs within a single mode optical fiber.
 In single mode optical fiber different color of light
travel at different speed in different material and
different waveguide structure. Hence light will exit
at different time for each color hence causing
dispersion.
The Intra-modal dispersion consists of two parts:
(a) Material dispersion:
(b) Waveguide dispersion:

Material dispersion:
This is due to intrinsic properties of the material, glass.
Material dispersion is a phenomenon in which different
optical wavelengths propagate at different velocities,
depending on the refractive index of the material used in
the fiber core.
Waveguide dispersion:
 This is due dispersive nature of the bound medium.
In a bound medium like the optical fiber, the
velocity is a function of frequency.
 The waveguide dispersion is due to the bound
structure of the optical fiber.
 While analyzing waveguide dispersion we assume
that the material dispersion is absent, that is the
refractive indices of the core and the cladding are
independent of wavelength
 Polarization mode dispersion
 Polarization mode dispersion (PMD) is a form of modal
dispersion where two different polarizations of light in a
waveguide, which normally travel at the same speed,
travel at different speeds due to random imperfections
and asymmetries, causing random spreading of optical
pulses.
 Inter-modal dispersion
 Inter-modal dispersion (present in only multimode
optical fiber). This dispersion is due to change in
velocity from one mode to other.
 Different rays take different time to propagate
through a given length of the fiber or different mode
travel with different speeds.