Rayleigh Scattering Losses: Scattering losses exists in optical fibers because of microscopic variations in the

material density and composition. As glass is composed by randomly connected network of molecules and several oxides
(e.g. SiO2, GeO2 and P2O5), these are the major cause of compositional structure fluctuation. These two effects results to
variation in refractive index and Rayleigh type scattering of light.

Rayleigh scattering of light is due to small localized changes in the refractive index of the core and cladding material.

There are two causes during the manufacturing of fiber:

1. The first is due to slight fluctuation in mixing of
ingredients. The random changes because of this are
impossible to eliminate completely.
2. The other cause is slight change in density as the silica
cools and solidifies. When light ray strikes such zones it gets
scattered in all directions. The amount of scatter depends
on the size of the discontinuity compared with the
wavelength of the light so the shortest wavelength (highest
frequency) suffers most scattering.

Fig. 2.3.1 shows graphically the relationship between

wavelength and Rayleigh scattering loss

Scattering loss for single component glass is given by,

where, n = Refractive index, kB = Boltzmann’s constant,

βT = Isothermal compressibility of material, Tf = Temperature at which density fluctuations are frozen into the glass as it
solidifies (fictive temperature)

Another form of equation is

where, P = Photoelastic coefficient,
δn2 = Mean square refractive index fluctuation, δv= Volume of fiber

• Multimode fibers have higher dopant concentrations and greater compositional fluctuations. The overall losses in this
fibers are more as compared to single mode fibers.

Mie Scattering :
• Linear scattering also occurs at inhomogenities and these arise from imperfections in the fiber’s geometry, irregularities
in the refractive index and the presence of bubbles etc. caused during manufacture. Careful control of manufacturing
process can reduce Mie scattering to insignificant levels.
Bending Loss:
Radiative losses occur whenever an optical fiber undergoes a bend of finite radius of curvature. Fibers can be subjected to
two types of bends:
a)Macroscopic bends (having radii that are large as compared with the fiber diameter)
b) Random microscopic bends of fiber axis

Losses due to curvature and losses caused by an abrupt change in radius of curvature are referred to as ‘bending losses.’
Micro bending Loss:
 Another form of radiation loss in optical waveguide results from
mode coupling caused by random micro bends of the optical fiber.
 Micro bends are repetitive small scale fluctuations in the radius of
curvature of the fiber axis. They are caused either by non uniformities in
the manufacturing of the fiber or by non uniform lateral pressures
created during the cabling of the fiber.
 An increase in attenuation results from micro bending because the
fiber curvature causes repetitive coupling of energy between the guided
modes and the leaky or non guided modes in the fiber.
 Micro bending losses can be minimized by placing 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.
 Microbending is a loss due to small bending or distortions. This small microbending is not visible. The losses due to this
are temperature related, tensile related or crush related.
 The total number of modes that can be supported by a curved fiber is less than that of a straight fiber.

Macrobending:
 As the radius of curvature decreases, the loss increases exponentially until at
a certain critical radius of curvature loss becomes observable.
 If the bend radius is made a bit smaller once this threshold point has been
reached, the losses suddenly become extremely large.
 When a fiber is bent, the field tail on the far side of the centre of curvature
must move faster to keep up with the field in the core, for the lowest order fiber
mode.
 At a certain critical distance xc, from the centre of the fiber; the field tail would have to move faster than the speed of
light to keep up with the core field. Since this is not possible the optical energy in the
field tail beyond xc radiates away.
 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.
 The change in spectral attenuation caused by macrobending is different to
microbending. Usually there are no peaks and troughs because in a macrobending no
light is coupled back into the core from the cladding as can happen in the case of
microbends.
 The macrobending losses are cause by large scale bending of fiber. The losses are
eliminated when the bends are straightened. The losses can be minimized by not
exceeding the long term bend radii.
Signal Dispersion in Fibers:
Signal dispersion is a consequence of factors such as intermodal delay
(also called intermodal dispersion), intramodal dispersion, polarization-
mode dispersion, and higher-order dispersion effects. These distortions
can be explained by examining the behavior of the group velocities of
the guided modes, where the group velocity is the speed at which
energy in a particular mode travels along the fiber.

Modal Delay:
 Intermodal delay (or simply modal delay) appears only in
multimode fibers. Modal delay is a result of each mode having a
different value of the group velocity at a single frequency. From this
effect one can derive an intuitive picture of the information carrying
capacity of a multimode fiber.
 An optical signal weakens from attenuation mechanisms and
broadens due to dispersion effects as it travels along a fiber. Eventually
these two factors will cause neighboring pulses to overlap.
 After a certain amount of overlap occurs, the receiver can no longer distinguish the individual adjacent pulses and errors
arise when interpreting the received signal.
 Intramodal dispersion or chromatic dispersion is pulse spreading that takes place within a single mode. This spreading arises
from the finite spectral emission width of an optical source. The phenomenon also is known as group velocity dispersion, since
the dispersion is a result of the group velocity being a function of the wavelength.

The two main causes of intramodal dispersion are as follows:

1. Material dispersion arises due to the variations of the refractive index of the core material as a function of wavelength.
Material dispersion also is referred to as chromatic dispersion, since this is the same effect by which a prism spreads out a
spectrum.
2. Waveguide dispersion causes pulse spreading because only part of the optical power propaga tion along a fi ber is confi ned
to the core.

Group Delay:
• Consider a fiber cable carrying optical signal equally with various modes and each mode contains all the spectral components in
the wavelength band. All the spectral components travel independently and they observe different time delay and group delay in
the direction of propagation. The velocity at which the energy in a pulse travels along the fiber is known as group velocity.
• Thus different frequency components in a signal will travel at different group velocities and so will arrive at their destination at
different times, for digital modulation of carrier, this results in dispersion of pulse, which affects the maximum rate of
modulation.

Material Dispersion:
Material dispersion is also called as chromatic dispersion. Material
dispersion exists due to change in index of refraction for different
wavelengths. Material dispersion is, an intramodal dispersion effect
and is of particular importance for single-mode wave guides and for
LED systems.

• Material dispersion can be reduced either by choosing sources with

narrower spectral output widths or by operating at longer wavelengths.