Transmission Characteristics of Optical Fibers

OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS (18EC703)
Unit-II
TRANSMISSION CHARACTERISTICS OF OPTICAL FIBERS: Introduction,
Attenuation, Material absorption losses in silica glass fibers, Linear scattering losses, Non-Linear
scattering losses, Fiber bend losses, Dispersion, Intramodal dispersion, Intermodal dispersion.
OPTICAL FIBER CONNECTION: JOINTS AND COUPLERS: Introduction, Fiber
alignment and joint loss, Fiber splices, Fiber Connectors, Expanded beam connectors, Fiber
Optic couplers.
Attenuation:
• Attenuation represents the reduction in amplitude of signal
• It is called as the transmission loss and it represents the reduction in intensity
of the light rays propagating through it.
• It is measure with respect to the distance travelled by light rays in optical
cable.
• Attenuation is usually expressed in decibel (dB).
The decibel, which is used for comparing two power levels, may be defined for
a particular optical wavelength as the ratio of the input (transmitted) optical
power Pi into a fiber to the output (received) optical power Po from the fiber as:
Therefore,
In optical fiber communications the attenuation is usually expressed in decibels per

unit length (i.e. dB km−1) following:
where αdB is the signal attenuation per unit length in decibels which is also referred
to as the fiber loss parameter and L is the fiber length.
A number of mechanisms are responsible for the signal attenuation within

optical fibers. These mechanisms are influenced by the material composition, the
preparation and purification technique, and the waveguide structure. They may be
categorized within several major areas which include material absorption, material
scattering (linear and nonlinear scattering), curve and microbending losses, mode
coupling radiation losses and losses due to leaky modes. There are also losses at
connectors and splices.
For problems on attenuation , see your class notes.

Absorption loss:
Intrinsic Extrinsic
Absorption loss:
• Material absorption is a loss mechanism related to the
material composition and fabrication process for the
fiber.
• Due to this some of the transmitted optical power is
dissipated in the form of heat.
• The absorption of the light may be in two types
• 1.Intrinsic:
caused by the interaction with one or more of the
major components of the glass.
• 2.Extrinsic:
caused by impurities within the glass.
Intrinsic Absorption loss:
• Pure glass has little intrinsic absorption due to the basic
material structure in the near infrared region.
• A low intrinsic absorption window over the 0.8 – 1.7 μm.
• This window shows a possible optical attenuation against
wavelength characteristic for absolutely pure glass.
• This is due to the simulation of electron transitions within
the glass by higher energy excitations.
• Wavelengths above 7 μm, fundamentals of absorption bands
from interaction of photons with molecular vibrations within
the glass occur.
• Then the absorption is extended to this window
• The strong absorption bands are occur due to oscillations of
structural units
B-O, Ge-O, Si-O, P-O within the glass
Intrinsic Absorption loss:
• The intrinsic absorption loss may be minimized by:

1.suitable choice of core- cladding materials.
2.glases such as depends of fluorides and chlorides instead of
oxides
Extrinsic Absorption loss:
• In practical optical fibers prepared by conventional melting
techniques.
• The metal element impurities cause extrinsic absorption
loss.
• Some metal impurities are shown below, which causes
extrinsic absorption.
Extrinsic Absorption loss:
• How ever, another major extrinsic loss mechanism is caused
due to water(OH ion) dissolved in the glass.
• These OH ions may create fundamental vibrations in the
glass structure.
• These vibrations may occur at wave lengths between 2.7 and
4.2 μm depending on group position in the network.
This extrinsic absorption loss may reduced using vapor phase oxidation method
Non Linear Scattering Loss:
• Optical waveguides do not always behave as completely

linear channels.
• Due to several non linear effects like scattering causing
disproportionate attenuation at high optical power levels.
• The non linear scattering causes optical power from one
mode to be transferred in either forward or backward
direction to the same or other modes at different frequency.
• This behavior critically depends upon the optical power
density within the fiber.
• The scattering mechanism gives optical gain but with a shift
in frequency
Stimulated Brillouin Scattering:
• It is regarded as the modulation of light through thermal
molecular vibrations within fiber.
• The scattered light appears as upper and lower sidebands
which are separated from the incident light by the
modulation frequency.
• The incident photon in this scattering process produces a
phonon of acoustic frequency as well as a scattered photon.
• It produces optical frequency shift. Because the frequency
varies with acoustic wavelength.
• The frequency shift is maximum in backward direction and
reducing to zero in the forward direction and hence making
SBS as mainly backward process.
Stimulated Brillouin Scattering:
• SBS is only significant above a threshold power density. The

threshold power
where d and λ are the fiber core diameter and the operating wavelength,
respectively, both measured in micrometers, αdB is the fiber attenuation
in decibels per kilometer and ν is the source bandwidth (i.e. injection
laser) in gigahertz.
• The above equation allows the determination of threshold optical
power which must be launched into a single mode optical fiber
before SBS occurs.
• Hence non linear scattering losses may be avoided by inducing
optical input signal below threshold optical power.
Stimulated Raman Scattering losses:
• Here the incident photon is scattering process produces an

optical phonon at high frequencies.
• SRS occurs both in forward and backward directions in
optical fiber. The Raman scattering threshold power is
• SBS &SRS are not observed in multimode fibers because of

their relatively large core diameters making the threshold
optical power levels extremely high.
Basics of Fiber Bending Loss
 If there is abrupt change in the radius of curvature of
fiber; then the radiation loss takes place from fiber.
 If there is sharp bend of the fiber then there is a
probability of mechanical failure of optical cable.
 Usually the higher order modes are not tightly bound to
the core layer; so due to the sharp bends, the radiation
losses of such modes take first.
Engineering Funda YouTube Channel

Types of Fiber Bending Loss
 There are two types of fiber bending losses
1. Macroscopic bending losses
2. Microbending Losses or Mode coupling Losses

Macroscopic Bending Loss

Macroscopic Bending Loss
 There is a radiation loss, when the radius of curvature of bend is greater
than the diameter of fiber. Such losses are also referred as large radius
losses.
 As the radius of curvature of bend decreases, such losses increase
exponentially.
 There is a certain critical value of radius of curvature upto which such
losses can be observed.
 In optical cable; the wavefornt perpendicular to the direction of
propagation must be maintained to achieve this the part of mode, which
is on the outside of bend has to travel faster.
 It indicates that, the light rays travelling through cladding; should travel
faster.
 It is not possible, so the energy associated with that part is lost through
radiation.
Microbending Losses or Mode Coupling
Losses

Microbending Losses or Mode Coupling
Losses
 These are the losses due to small bending or small distortion.
 If there are small fluctuations in the radius of curvature of fiber axis, then
microbends are created and light rays radiate out from these microbends.
 The Microbends are formed due to two main reasons:
 Non uniformities in the core radius, while manufacturing the cable.
 During the cabling of fibers, non uniform lateral pressure can be created.
 To minimize the losses due to microbends we should takes following steps:
 While manufacturing the cable; a precise control of core diameter is maintained.
 A compressible jacket is fitted over the fiber, so that when the external pressure is
applied then the deformation of jacket place and there will not be creation of
microbends in the core layer of fiber.
Dispersion:
• Dispersion of the transmitted optical signal causes distortion for both digital
and analog transmission along optical fibers.
• When considering the major implementation of optical fiber transmission
which involves some form of digital modulation, then dispersion
mechanisms within the fiber cause broadening of the transmitted light pulses
as they travel along the channel. The phenomenon is illustrated in Figure
3.7, where it may be observed that each pulse broadens and overlaps with its
neighbors, eventually becoming indistinguishable at the receiver input. The
effect is known as intersymbol interference (ISI).
• signal dispersion alone limits the maximum possible bandwidth attainable
with a particular optical fiber to the point where individual symbols can no
longer be distinguished.
Figure 3.9 shows the three common optical fiber structures, namely multimode
step index, multimode graded index and single-mode step index, while
diagrammatically illustrating the respective pulse broadening associated with each
fiber type.
It may be observed that the multimode step index fiber exhibits the greatest
dispersion of a transmitted light pulse and the multimode graded index fiber gives
a considerably improved performance.
Finally, the single-mode fiber gives the minimum pulse broadening and thus is
capable of the greatest transmission bandwidths which are currently in the
gigahertz range, whereas transmission via multimode step index fiber is usually
limited to bandwidths of a few tens of megahertz.
There are two types of dispersion
1. Chromatic dispersion
2. Intermodel dispersion
Chromatic dispersion
1. Chromatic or intramodal dispersion may occur in all types of optical fiber

and results from the finite spectral linewidth of the optical source.
2. Since optical sources do not emit just a single frequency but a band of
frequencies (in the case of the injection laser corresponding to only a
fraction of a percent of the center frequency, whereas for the LED it is likely
to be a significant percentage), then there may be propagation delay
differences between the different spectral components of the transmitted
signal. This causes broadening of each transmitted mode and hence
intramodal dispersion.
3. The delay differences may be caused by the dispersive properties of the
waveguide material (material dispersion) and also guidance effects within
the fiber structure (waveguide dispersion).
Material dispersion
Figure 3.10 shows the variation of the material dispersion parameter M with
wavelength for pure silica. It may be observed that the material dispersion tends to
zero in the longer wavelength region around 1.3 μm (for pure silica). This provides
an additional incentive (other than low attenuation) for operation at longer
wavelengths where the material dispersion may be minimized. Also, the use of an
injection laser with a narrow spectral width rather than an LED as the optical
source leads to a substantial reduction in the pulse broadening due to material
dispersion, even in the shorter wavelength region.
Waveguide dispersion
For a single mode whose propagation constant is β, the fiber exhibits waveguide
dispersion when d2β/dλ2 ≠ 0.
Intermodal dispersion
Multimode step index fiber
Multimode graded index fiber
• Intermodal dispersion in multimode fibers is minimized with the use of

graded index fibers. Hence, multimode graded index fibers show substantial
bandwidth improvement over multimode step index fibers.
• Figure 3.13(b) shows several meridional ray paths within the fiber core. It
may be observed that apart from the axial ray, the meridional rays follow
sinusoidal trajectories of different path lengths which result from the index
grading.
The dramatic improvement in multimode fiber bandwidth achieved with a
parabolic or near-parabolic refractive index profile is highlighted by consideration
of the reduced delay difference between the fastest and slowest modes for this
graded index fiber δTg.
Using a ray theory approach the delay difference is given by
The total first-order dispersion DT in a practical single-mode fiber as comprising
which is simply the addition of the material dispersion DM, the waveguide
dispersion DW and the profile dispersion DP components.

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OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS (18EC703)

In optical fiber communications the attenuation is usually expressed in decibels per

A number of mechanisms are responsible for the signal attenuation within

For problems on attenuation , see your class notes.

• The intrinsic absorption loss may be minimized by:

• Optical waveguides do not always behave as completely

• SBS is only significant above a threshold power density. The

• Here the incident photon is scattering process produces an

• SBS &SRS are not observed in multimode fibers because of

Engineering Funda YouTube Channel

Engineering Funda YouTube Channel

Engineering Funda YouTube Channel

Engineering Funda YouTube Channel

There are two types of dispersion

1. Chromatic or intramodal dispersion may occur in all types of optical fiber

• Intermodal dispersion in multimode fibers is minimized with the use of

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