MOHAMED SATHAK ENGINEERING COLLEGE,KILAKARAI

Fiber Optics and Laser Instruments

UNIT I -OPTICAL FIBRE AND THEIR PROPERTIES

• There is no longer any essentially physical limit on the rate at which we can convey
information from one place to another -- an age old communication problem has
been solved!

• The problem now is how to effectively organize this nearly limitless capacity for
communication.

• Who cares? Can humankind find uses for all these Gbits/s?

Optical Communication History:

Alexander Graham Bell in 1880 reported the transmission of speech over 200 meter by
modulating sunlight with a reflecting diaphragm ("photophone")

To avoid the degradation of optical signals in the atmosphere, Kao and Hockman in
England (and simultaneously Wirt in France) in 1966 suggested the use of dielectric
wave guides or optical fibers.

Historical reduction of optical loss - after Suzanne R. Nagel.

Increase in bit rate-distance product during the years 1850-2000. The emergence of a
new technology is marked by a filled circle - after Govind P. Agrawal.

Progress in lightwave communication technology over the period 1974-1992. Different

curves show the increase in the bit rate-distance product for five generations of fiber-
optic communication systems - after Govind P. Agrawal.

Two Enabling Technologies:

Lasers: coherent sources of light
Glass: fibers with low optical attenuation

The Advent of the Laser - The Requisite Communication Resource

Human-made vs. Natural Sources of Electromagnetic Radiation (coherent vs. incoherent

light sources)
The classical picture of light emission: Radiating lines of force from an oscillating charge

The quantum mechanical picture of light emission: Absorption and Emission of

Radiation by an Atom

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Coherent radiation: a continuous source (sharp spectral lines)

Incoherent radiation: a discontinuous or interrupted source (broad spectral lines)

Lasers: sources of fairly coherent radiation

Given the "quantum nature" of atomic emission, how do we get a fairly continuous
source?

Answer: We induce a cooperative emission process. The key idea is that "population
inversion" leads to "stimulated emission of radiation

Communication media:
Visual Communication: torches, flares, smoke signals, semaphore, railroad signals and
signal flags
Sonic or Auditory Communication: bells, sirens, horns, whistles, signal drums and
Hooke/Wheatstone "Aconcryptophone"
Shocking communication: communication by electric current flow on a electrical
conductor.
The Shanon Diagram

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Optical Fibers as Open-Boundary Waveguides
As indicated in Figure , an optical fiber is basically a two-layered structure comprised of
dielectric material. It has a uniform circular cross-section along a straight longitudinal
axis. The inner region is called the core and the outer region the cladding. We first
analyze the electromagnetic fields present in optical fibers to derive several important
propagation characteristics.

We study fields in phasor form, with the operating (radian) frequency. Assume the core
is a perfect dielectric characterized by , and define the parameter k as:

We also assume power flow is occurring along the longitudinal axis. Set this to be the z-
axis and so the electric field has the form:

where lies in the transverse plane (has no z-component), and are the pola r
coordinates for the transverse plane. Similarly, the magnetic field is given by:

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The parameter is called the phase constant. It can be shown that real power flow in the

+z-direction occurs when is real and positive. The phase and group velocities of the
field, and , respectively, are defined as:

Moreover, the group velocity is the speed of propagation of energy or information along
the optical fiber.
Define q as:

Then Maxwell's equations for and are:

and:

The method of modal analysis seeks to represent the field as the superposition of several
special types of fields. There are several types of modes. First, we must outright reject
TEM (transverse electric and magnetic) modes, in which both and , since
no (nonzero) TEM modes can lead to real power flow in this situation. TE (transverse
electric) modes have , while TM (transverse magnetic) modes have .
Although TE or TM modes lead to a somewhat simplified analysis, there are several
important fields which cannot be expressed as the superposition of such modes.
Therefore, we must also consider more general hybrid modes; HE modes have

and EH modes have .

The geometry of the situation leads us to seek functions periodic in . Therefore, we

assume the -dependence has the form where is an integer (possibly positive,
negative or 0). Thus:

and hence:

Pag
Moreover, since this is in the core region, we impose that to stay finite as .

Thus, the solution is the order Bessel function of the first kind, . A similar
result holds for .

Now let us distinguish between the core , characterized by , and the

cladding characterized by . Define:

Imposing that the core function stays finite at r=0, that the cladding function decay to 0 at

, and that for real power flow, we have that u>0 and w>0. Thus, in

particular, . Note, in particular, that this requires , which is the case

in real fibers.
It may be convenient at times to express and in terms of the respective indices of
refraction and and the wavelength in free-space:

The longitudinal components in the core are given by:

and those in the cladding are:

In particular, we impose the same value characterize the fields in the core and cladding.
This is necessary to achieve phase match conditions at r=a; for example, must be
continuous at r=a. Also, is the order Bessel function of the second kind. It can be

shown that (asymptotically) as . In fact,

for real .
To summarize, to have the field in the cladding decay we must have:

The condition is called cutoff. Additionally, if is not real valued, that is if

, then we have no real power flow. Hence we must also have:

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with a corresponding cutoff condition . To summarize:

where is the free-space wavenumber.

The appropriate boundary conditions we must impose at r=a are:

These equations correspond to the property that the tangential component of the electric
field must be continuous along a dielectric boundary. The first leads boundary condition
leads to:

and the second to:

We must also impose:

These correspond to the fact that the tangential magnetic field is continuous along a
dielectric boundary if there is no surface current present.
We have a total of four homogeneous equations in A,B,C,D:

Since we seek nonzero fields, we cannot have all four constants A,B,C,D equal to zero;
hence:

This condition must be met for a field to be present. Define:

Then equation (1.22) becomes:

Given k, that is , the values u,w are known functions of . He nce, (1.24) specifies as
a function of frequency , and as a function of the parameter . This equation has only
discrete solutions, and in general for each there will be several roots, denoted as:

The corresponding modes are denoted as TE, , or , as appropriate.

Let us examine the TE and TM cases in particular. We obtain TE by setting A=B=0, and
we seek nonzero C,D; and similarly TM is obtained by setting C=D=0 and we seek

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nonzero A,B. In each case, this req uires a submatrix of M to have nonzero
determinant, and in particular can be shown to require:

Thus, there can be no -variation (there is radial symmetry) for TE and TM modes. The

equation determining for TE is:

Similarly, the equation determining for TM is:

If , we do not have TE or TM modes, and the analysis becomes very complex.

However, if , we can apply an important class of

approximations which lead to weakly guided waves.

The cutoff conditions for lower order modes are summarized in Table
below.

Table 1.1: Cutoff Conditions for Low Order Modes

We now discuss the V-number, also called the V-parameter or the normalized frequency.
The value V is defined as:

and is dimensionless. Note that the value is proportional to frequency (up to a

factor equal to the speed of light), and hence V is called the normalized frequency.
The value V is related to the number of modes a fiber can support. Also define the
normalized propagation constant b as:

Note that 0<b<1 corresponds to propagation.

A graph of b or versus V shows, for fixed V, only several modes are possible. In
particular, the HE mode exists (corresponds to a value b in the range 0 to 1) for all V,

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down to V=0. No other mode exists until V=2.405 (this is the smallest root of ). Hence,
below this value of V, all modes other than HE are cutoff. For this reason, HE is
called the dominant mode.
We define the numerical aperture of a fiber to be:

so that:

The physical significance of the numerical aperture can be obtained using the ray theory
approximation to wave propagation. Refer to Figure 1. We assume light propagates in
the fiber like a plane wave reflecting at top and bottom core-cladding boundaries
according to total internal reflection (TIR); TIR occurs when the incidence angle at a
dielectric boundary exceed the critical angle, that is when:

It can be shown that the field in the cladding when TIR occurs has no real power flow
associated with it, and is called evanescent. If we imagine launching a light wave into the
fiber core from air, with an entry angle , then:

Thus, there is a maximum entry angle for which power will be launched in the fiber, and
we define numerical aperture in terms of this maximum angle as:

The two definitions of numerical aperture coincide when .

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Equation (1.32) implies two basic factors increase V, and hence increase the number of
modes present in light propagating in a fiber. First, if the diameter a is increased (relative
to wavelength) then V is increased. Hence, single-mode fibers have a narrow core
diameter, and permit only one mode (the HE mode) to propagate; multi-mode fibers
have a larger core diameter and permit many modes. Additionally, a large numerical
aperture enlarges V. Now, equation (1.35) implies a larger NA corresponds to the ability
of the fiber to accept a larger beamwidth of the input light signal. LED light sources
produce much broader beams than semiconductor laser diodes, and hence LED sources
must be used with larger NA fibers, and hence multi-mode fibers.
Let us consider multi-mode fibers (so that the total number of modes M) is large with a
laser beam input. Approximate by , so the solid acceptance angle for a light input
(specified by (1.35)) is:

For a waveguide or laser with radiation at , the number of modes per unit solid angle is
approximately:

where is the area; the factor 2 refers to two polarized orientations. Then:

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Let us return to the weakly guided fiber approximation. Define as:

and assume . Two mode with the same value for are said to be degenerate. We
associate degenerate modes together since they have identical propagation characteristics,
although different field distributions. In other words, we consider all linear combinations
of a class of degenerate modes to be a mode unto itself. We group the primary lower
order modes according to their degeneracies:

Numerically, implies:

and we get:

The positive sign leads to EH modes:

and the negative sign leads to HE modes:

To summarize:

where:

Hence, all modes with the same j and m are degenerate; for example and
. This pair of degenerate modes are called LP (linearly polarized) modes, since
they can be combined to yield fixed orientation. That is, in a complete set of modes, only
one E and one H component are significant, say the polarized along one axis and
perpendicular to it. Equivalent solutions are obtained with the polarization reversed.

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These two cases can be combined with and so four mode patterns form one
mode.
Propagation in Optical Fibers
There are two primary system parameters which determine the characteristics of optical
communication systems. Specifically, data is transmitted by a sequence of pulses, and the
system must ensure these pulses are received with a sufficiently low probability of error,
also called the bit-error rate (BER). Given a particular receiver, achieving a specified
BER requires a minimum received power and a maximum data rate or signal bandwidth.
An optical fiber introduces attenuation and dispersion in the system. Whereas attenuation
tends to increase the power requirements of the transmitter needed to meet the power
requirements at the receiver, dispersion limits the bandwidth of the data which may be
transmitted over the fiber. We first examine dispersion.
We recall the definition of index of refraction n as:

and hence n=1 for free-space. For silica glass , . By placing impuriti es
(dopants) in the material we can modify n. Optical fibers have a small core surrounded by
a (relatively) thick cladding whose index of refraction is slightly less than that in the core.
Let denote the (nominal) value of n in the core, and in the cladding. Let us denote
the radius of the core as a.
If n is constant in the core, it is a step-index fiber, and is otherwise a graded-index fiber.
The value of n as a function of r for a step-index fiber is:

and is graphed in Figure , while the value of n as a function of r for a graded-index

fiber is:

where and is graphed in Figure .

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Page 12
If we define , typically ; it is usually no more than a few percent.
The numerical aperture can be approximated as:

A typical value is NA=0.2, which corresponds to a maximum entry angle .

Dispersion refers to the distortion of a propagating wave. Dispersionless transmission in
general requires a constant group velocity. There are several types of dispersion.
Modal dispersion is caused when a propagating wave is comprised of several different
modes with different propagation characteristics. Modal dispersion can be eliminated (in
principle) using single-mode fibers have cross-section close to , and are common at
1300nm and 850nm. The core typically has a diameter of and the cladding a
diameter of . Multimode fibers have core diameter and a cladding
diameter of . The purpose of graded index fibers is to reduce modal
dispersion in multimode fibers. If we use the ray model for propagating waves, different
modes correspond to different angles of incidence at the core-cladding boundary; those
with steeper angles have lower group velocity. However, in a graded-index fibers, the
index of refraction decreases away from the center, hence the speed of light increases as

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the cladding is approached, and this tends to compensate for the different paths taken by
different modes.
Single mode fibers have and multimode fibers have .
Material dispersion is caused by imperfect materials whose n depends on . This effect is
usually an order of magnitude smaller than modal dispersion, and is typically quantified
in terms of:

A third type of dispersion is waveguide dispersion, caused by non-constant group

velocity as a function of for a fixed mode.
One of the main consequences of dispersion is that a propagating pulse will broaden. We
can quantify the pulse broadening in terms of the variance of the waveform. That is,

consider a pulse of light whose intensity as a function of time is ; normalize the

intensity so that:

Define the mean time as:

and the variance as:

If we input a pulse with variance to a dispersive system, then the output has variance

given by:

In quantifying dispersion, an important consideration is the spectral width of the light

signal. The spectral width is a measure of the purity of the light as a function of

wavelength. If we consider the intensity as a function of wavelength, , then the

spectral width is defined as:

where:

and the intensity is normalized as:

Since dispersion causes pulse broadening, if we attempt to place too many pulses per
second, they will spread and interfere with each other. Thus, a practical limitation is the
available bandwidth, measured in MHz or Mbps. As we shall soon see, the bandwidth is

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inversely proportional to distance, so the bandwidth-distance product (in units of
) is approximately constant. For a multimode step index fiber, this is
, for a step index multimode fiber it is , and it can be
larger ( or more) for single mode fibers.
To understand the effect of dispersion, consider the group delay. This is the time delay
per unit length of energy propagating through a transmission system. We can assume
each spectral component travels independently and undergoes its own time delay, . Let
L be the transmission distance and the group velocity. Then:

where:

If the spectral width is not too big, the delay difference over the range of wavelengths

comprising the light energy can be approximated by at wavelengths .

Thus, the delay difference between two such spectral components is:

We define the dispersion constant D as:

Its units are typically given as picoseconds per kilometer per nanometer.
To quantify material dispersion, we use the ray model approximation, which in particular

yields where is a function of wavelength. This yields:

and hence:

If we define the material dispersion constant as:

Then:

We now quantify waveguide dispersion. We first write:

For small , we get:

If is not a function of , then:

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Now, and hence:

A detailed computation yields:

Then:

For the type of material used in fibers, at lower wavelengths:

and:

and hence material dispersion dominates. At higher wavelengths (about ),

waveguide dispersion dominates.
Modal dispersion in multimode fibers can be approximated as:

Now we consider attenuation. Any optical fiber will attenuate a propagating signal. Given
input power over a fiber of length L and output power , the mean attenuation
constant of the fiber, in units of dB/km, is defined as:

The decibel unit (dB) is used to represent power ratios. However, it is sometimes
convenient to represent absolute power levels on a logarithmic scale. The most
commonly used unit is dBm, which corresponds to power referenced to 10mW:

One of the main causes of attenuation is absorption of energy (or photons). Absorption is
caused by atomic defects which result when the fiber is exposed to radiation, extrinsic
absorption by impurity atoms, and intrinsic absorption by constituent atoms of the
material. The dominant mechanism is extrinsic absorption, primarily by metallic ions
(iron, cobalt, etc.) and ions.
In early optical fibers, the transmission distance was primarily limited by absorption by
ions. These ions were introduced in the material from the presence of water or

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water vapor during the manufacture process. Attenuation caused by this ion is greatest at
1400, 950 and 725nm, leaving ``windows'' for transmission between these wavelengths.
The advent of the vapor phase axial deposition (VAD) manufacture method led to
tremendous reduction in the concentration in fibers.
Losses in modern fibers are caused by ultraviolet absorption, infrared loss and scattering
losses. The scattering losses, modeled by Rayleigh scattering, are caused by the
interaction of the light wave with the constituent molecules which are on the order of the

light wavelength. Rayleigh scattering loss is , so it can be reduced by increasing

the wavelength. On the other hand, infrared absorption loss tends to increase with , and
is usually worst above . The point where this loss starts to increase to
unacceptably large levels can be pushed out by doping the with halides. In general,
the combined effect of such losses is minimum at about .
There are also losses caused by bends and microbends; a microbend is a tiny ``crinkle'' or
imperfection in the surface of the fiber, on the dimensions of several wavelengths, and
causes a perturbation in the field. Thus, microbends lead to coupling to higher order
modes, which do not have the desired transmission characteristics, and also causes power
loss. Bending and microbending can occur while the fiber is being manufactured,
specifically during the spooling process. Spooling a fiber to minimize bends and
microbends is not trivial when we consider that very long continuous fibers, of lengths
1km or more, are manufactured. The reason for manufacturing such long fibers is that
splicing or coupling fiber segments together can introduce significant losses. The basic
reason for loss when splicing fibers is the faces of the two segments are not properly
aligned, so not all the output power of one segment is inserted to the other. Losses in
modern fibers can be kept down to as little as 0.01dB/km.
If BW denotes the signal bandwidth and L the length of the fiber, then the bandwidth-
length product is approximately constant. This constant depends on overall system
parameters, such as total power loss, BER, etc. More precisely, an empirical result is:

is approximately constant, and the parameter is some value between 0.5 to 0.9. Usually,
for L<1km, whereas for L>1km, . Actually, this is not an entirely
empirical result. What happens is that, as light travels over a longer and longer distance,
energy at one modes tends to couple or induce energy at other modes, so that over long
distances the modes are strongly coupled to each other, and do not propagate
independently. In any case, the length 1km usually separates the applications of optical
fiber transmission into short-haul and long-haul links.

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