OPTICAL FIBRE

COMMUNICATION
BY
EESHA POONJA A
• In standard optical fibers the core material is
highly pure silica glass (SiO2) compound and is
surrounded by a glass cladding
• In addition, most fibers are encapsulated in an
elastic, abrasion-resistant plastic material
 Optical fiber
• An optical fiber is a dielectric waveguide that
operates at optical frequencies
• The propagation of light along a waveguide can be
described in terms of a set of guided
electromagnetic waves called the modes of the
waveguide
• These guided modes are referred to as the bound
or trapped modes of the waveguide
• Variations in the material composition of the core
give rise to the two commonly used fiber types:
• step-index fiber: the refractive index of the core is
uniform throughout and undergoes an abrupt
change (or step) at the cladding boundary
• graded-index fiber: the core refractive index is
made to vary as a function of the radial distance
from the center of the fiber.
• A single-mode fiber sustains only one mode of propagation,
whereas multimode fibers contain many hundreds of
modes.
• The larger core radii of multimode fibers make it easier to
launch optical power into the fiber and facilitate the
connecting together of similar fibers.
• Another advantage is that light can be launched into a
multimode fiber using a light-emitting diode (LED) source,
whereas single-mode fibers must generally be excited with
laser diodes.
• Although LEDs have less optical output power
than laser diodes ,they are easier to make, are less
expensive, require less complex circuitry, and have
longer lifetimes than laser diodes, thus making
them more desirable in certain applications.
• A disadvantage of multimode fibers is that they
suffer from intermodal dispersion
 Intermodal dispersion
• When an optical pulse is launched into a fiber, the
optical power in the pulse is distributed over all
(or most) of the modes of the fiber.
• Each of the modes that can propagate in a
multimode fiber travels at a slightly different
velocity. This means that the modes in a given
optical pulse arrive at the fiber end at slightly
different times, thus causing the pulse to spread
out in time as it travels along the fiber.
• This effect, which is known as intermodal
dispersion or intermodal distortion, can be
reduced by using a graded-index profile in a fiber
core.
• This allows graded-index fibers to have much
larger bandwidths (data rate transmission
capabilities) then step-index fibers.
• Even higher bandwidths are possible in single-
mode fibers, where intermodal dispersion effects
are not present.
 Rays and Modes
•For monochromatic light fields of radian frequency
w, a mode traveling in the positive z direction (i.e.,
along the fiber axis) has a time and z dependence
given by
• Another method for theoretically studying the
propagation characteristics of light in an optical
fiber is the geometrical optics or ray-tracing
approach
• This method provides a good approximation to the
light acceptance and guiding properties of optical
fibers when the ratio of the fiber radius to the
wavelength is large.
• This is known as the small-wavelength limit
• The family of plane waves corresponding to a
particular mode forms a set of rays called a ray
congruence.
• Each ray of this particular set travels in the fiber
at the same angle relative to the fiber axis.
 Step-Index Fiber Structure
• In practical step-index fibers the core of radius a
has a refractive index n1, which is typically equal to
1.48.
• This is surrounded by a cladding of slightly lower
index n2, where n2 = n1(1 - )
• The parameter is called the core-cladding index
difference or simply the index difference.
• Values of n2 are chosen such that is nominally
0.01.
 Ray Optics Representation
• The two types of rays that can propagate in a
fiber are meridional rays and skew rays.
• Meridional rays are confined to the meridian
planes of the fiber, which are the planes that
contain the axis of symmetry of the fiber (the
core axis).
• Skew rays are not confined to a single plane,
but instead tend to follow a helical-type path
• From Snell’s law, the minimum or critical angle φc
that supports total internal reflection for the
meridional ray is given by

sin φc =n2/n1
•By applying Snell’s law to the air–fiber face
boundary, We get maximum entrance angle θ0, max,
which is called the acceptance angle θA, through the
relationship

•Thus those rays having entrance angles θ0 less than θA

will be totally internally reflected at the core–cladding
interface.
• Thus θA defines an acceptance cone for an optical fiber
The numerical aperture (NA) of a step-index
fiber for meridional rays
2.4.1 Overview of Modes
• Guided modes in the fiber occur when the values
for satisfy the condition n2k < < n1k.
• At the limit of propagation when = n2k, a mode
is no longer properly guided and is called being
cut off.
• Thus unguided or radiation modes appear for
frequencies below the cutoff point where <
n2k.
• Wave propagation can still occur below cutoff for
those modes where some of the energy loss due to
radiation is blocked by an angular momentum
barrier that exists near the core-cladding
interface.
• These propagation states behave as partially
confined guided modes rather than radiation
modes and are called leaky Modes.
• These leaky modes can travel considerable
distances along a fiber but lose power through
leakage or tunneling into the cladding as they
propagate.
 Summary of Key Modal Concepts
An important parameter connected with the
cutoff condition is the V number defined by

This parameter is a dimensionless number that

determines how many modes a fiber can support.
• The modes are cut off when = n2k. This occurs
when V <= 2.405. The HE11 mode has no cutoff
and ceases to exist only when the core diameter is
zero.
• The V number also can be used to express the
number of modes M in a multimode step-index
fiber when V is large
where P is the total optical power in the fiber.
 Mode-Field Diameter
• The mode-field diameter is analogous to the core
diameter in multimode fibers, except that in
single-mode fibers not all the light that propagates
through the fiber is carried in the core
• For example, at V = 2 only 75 percent of the
optical power is confined to the core. This
percentage increases for larger values of V and is
less for smaller V values.
Mode-Field Diameter
• The MFD is an important parameter for single-
mode fiber because it is used to predict fiber
properties such as splice loss, bending loss, cutoff
wavelength, and waveguide dispersion.
• A standard technique to find the MFD is to
measure the far-field intensity distribution E2 (r)
and then calculate the MFD using the Petermann
II equation
where 2w0 (called the spot size) is the full width of
the far-field distribution.

where r is the radius and E0 is the field at zero.

 Propagation Modes in Single-Mode
Fibers
• Horizontal (H) and the Vertical (V) polarization
modes constitutes the fundamental HE11 mode
• In actual fibers there are imperfections, such as
asymmetrical lateral stresses, noncircular cores, and
variations in refractive-index profiles.
• These imperfections break the circular symmetry of
the ideal fiber and lift the degeneracy of the two
modes.
• The modes propagate with different phase velocities,
and the difference between their effective refractive
indices is called the fiber birefringence,
• Bf= ny - nx
• we may define the birefringence as
• = k0(ny- nx)
• where

• ko is the free-space propagation constant.

• When this phase difference is an integral multiple
of , the two modes will beat at this point and
the input polarization state will be reproduced.
• The length over which this beating occurs is the
fiber beat length
 Fiber Materials
• It must be possible to make long, thin,
flexible fibers from the material.
• The material must be transparent at a
particular optical wavelength in order for
the fiber to guide light efficiently.
• Physically compatible materials that have
slightly different refractive indices for the
core and cladding must be available.
 Glass Fibers

• Composition: Primarily made of silica (SiO2) with

dopants like GeO2, P2O5, and B2O3 to adjust
refractive index.
• Doping: Doping increases core refractive index
(GeO2, P2O5) or decreases cladding index (B2O3,
fluorine).
• Advantages: High transparency, resistance to
thermal shock, low thermal expansion, and excellent
chemical durability.
• Properties: High melting temperature (~1000°C) but
can be processed using vapor deposition techniques.
• Applications: Widely used in fiber-optic
communication for long-distance transmission.
 Active Glass Fibers

• Rare-Earth Doping: Incorporating elements like

erbium (Er) or neodymium (Nd) into the glass for
amplification and laser applications.
• Properties: Rare-earth elements enable optical
amplification, attenuation, and phase retardation.
• Concentration: Doping concentration is low (0.005–
0.05 mole percent) to prevent clustering effects.
• Application: Commonly used in fiber lasers and
optical amplifiers for fiber-optic communication.
• Excitation Process: Light is used to excite the
dopants, leading to the emission of light at specific
wavelengths.
 Plastic Optical Fibers (POF)

• Material: Made from polymethylmethacrylate

(PMMA) or perfluorinated polymers.
• Advantages: Flexible, low-cost, easy to install, and
suitable for short-distance, high-speed
communication.
• Disadvantages: Higher optical signal attenuation
compared to glass fibers.
• Installation: Flexible and easy to install in customer
premises with standard connectors.
• Applications: Used for high-bandwidth, short-distance
connections such as between workstations or within
buildings.
 Attenuation (fiber loss or signal loss)

• Attenuation is a measure of decay of signal

strength or loss of light power that occurs as
light pulses propagate through the length of
the fiber.
• The basic attenuation mechanisms in a fiber
are absorption, scattering, and radiative
losses of the optical energy
• 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 Units
• 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
• is the fiber attenuation coefficient given in units of,
for example, km-1.
• For simplicity in calculating optical signal
attenuation in a fiber, the common procedure is to
express the attenuation coefficient in units of
decibels per kilometer, denoted by dB/km
• This parameter is generally referred to as the fiber
loss or the fiber attenuation.
• It is a function of the wavelength.
 Absorption
Absorption loss is related to the material composition
and fabrication process of fiber.
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
 Atomic Defects
• Atomic defects are imperfections in the atomic
structure of the fiber materials such as missing
molecules, high density clusters of atom groups
• The absorption effect is most significant when fiber is
exposed to ionizing radiation in nuclear reactor,
medical therapies, space missions etc.
• The radiation damages the internal structure of fiber.
• The higher the radiation intensity more the
attenuation
• The total dose a material receives is expressed in
rad (Si), this is the unit for measuring radiation
absorbed in bulk silicon.
• 1 rad (Si) = 0.01 J.kg
 Extrinsic Absorption

• Extrinsic absorption occurs due to electronic transitions

between the energy level and because of charge
transitions from one ion to another.
• A major source of attenuation is from transition of
metal impurity ions such as iron, chromium, cobalt and
copper.
• The effect of metallic impurities can be reduced by glass
refining techniques
• Another major extrinsic loss is caused by absorption due
to OH (Hydroxil) ions impurities dissolved in glass.
• The absorption peaks occurs at 725, 950, 1240, and 1380
nm.
 Intrinsic Absorption
• Intrinsic absorption occurs when material is in
absolutely pure state, no density variation and in
homogenities.
• Thus intrinsic absorption sets the fundamental
lower limit on absorption for any particular
material.
• Intrinsic absorption results from electronic
absorption bands in UV region and from atomic
vibration bands in the near infrared region.
• The electronic absorption bands are associated
with the band gaps of amorphous glass materials.
• Absorption occurs when a photon interacts with
an electron in the valence band and excites it to a
higher energy level.
• UV absorption decays exponentially with
increasing wavelength (λ).
The ultraviolet edge of the electron absorption bands of
both amorphous and crystal line materials follow the
empirical relationship

which is known as Urbach’s rule. Here, C and E0

are empirical constants and E is the photon energy.

The ultraviolet loss at any wavelength is expressed

as,
• where, x is mole fraction of GeO2.
• λ is operating wavelength.
• αuv is in dB/km.
• The loss in infrared (IR) region (above 1.2
μm) is given by expression :
 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
• 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.
• The first is due to slight fluctuation in mixing of
ingredients. The random changes because of this are
impossible to eliminate completely.
• 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
• For single-component glass the scattering loss at a
wavelength l (given in mm) resulting from density
fluctuations can be approximated 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)
where p is the photoelastic coefficient

For multicomponent glasses the scattering at a

wavelength l (measured in mm) is given by
• Multimode fibers have higher dopant
concentrations and greater compositional
fluctuations. The overall losses in this fibers are
more as compared to single mode fibers.
 Bending Losses
• Radiative losses occur whenever an optical fiber
undergoes a bend of finite radius of curvature
• Fibers can be subject to two types of curvatures:
(a) macroscopic bends having radii that are large
compared with the fiber diameter, such as those
that occur when a fiber cable turns a corner
(b) random microscopic bends of the fiber axis
that can arise when the fibers are incorporated
into cables.
 Macrobending losses or bending
losses
• As the radius of curvature decreases, the loss
increases exponentially until at a certain critical
radius the 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.
• Effective number of modes Meff that are
guided by a curved multimode fiber of
radius a

• where a defines the graded-index profile,

• k is the wave propagation constant, and
is the total number of modes in a straight fiber
 Microbends
• Microbends are repetitive small-scale fluctuations in the
radius of curvature of the fiber axis, They are caused either
by nonuniformities in the manufacturing of the fiber or by
nonuniform lateral pressures created during the cabling of
the fiber.
• The latter effect is often referred to as cabling or
packaging losses.
• 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 a M of a jacketed fiber is
reduced from that of an unjacketed fiber by a
factor
Here, Ej and Ef are the Young’s moduli of the
jacket and fiber, respectively. The Young’s
modulus of common jacket materials ranges from
20 to 500 MPa.
The Young’s modulus of fused silica glass is about
65 GPa
 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 alpha1 and
alpha2, respectively. If the influence of modal
coupling is ignored
 The total loss of the waveguide can be found by
summing over all modes weighted by the fractional
power in that mode.
For the case of a graded-index fiber, both the
attenuation coefficients and the modal power tend
to be functions of the radial coordinate. At a
distance r from the core axis the loss is
• where alpha1 and alpha2 are the axial and
cladding attenuation coefficients

where p(r) is the power density of that mode at r

• However, it has generally been observed that the loss
increases with increasing mode number
 Signal Dispersion in Fibers
• 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.
 Overview of Dispersion Origins
• 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.
• Group velocity is the speed at which energy in a
particular mode travels along the fiber
 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.
 Intramodal dispersion
• Intramodal dispersion or chromatic dispersion is
pulse spreading that takes place within a single
mode.
• 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.
• Because intramodal dispersion depends on the
wavelength, its effect on signal distortion increases
with the spectral width of the light source
 Two main causes of intramodal
dispersion
• Material dispersion
• Waveguide dispersion
 Material dispersion
• Material dispersion arises due to the variations of
the refractive index of the core material as a
function of wavelength
• This refractive index property causes a
wavelength dependence of the group velocity of a
given mode; that is, pulse spreadin occurs even
when different wavelengths follow the same path
 Waveguide dispersion
• Waveguide dispersion causes pulse spreading
because only part of the optical power
propagation along a fiber is confined to the core
• Shorter wavelengths are more completely confined
to the fiber core, whereas a larger portion of the
optical power at longer wavelengths propagates in
the cladding
• The refractive index is lower in the cladding than
in the core, so the fraction of light power
propagating in the cladding travels faster than the
light confined to the core
 Polarization-mode dispersion
• Light-signal energy at a given wavelength in a
single-mode fiber actually occupies two
orthogonal polarization states or modes
• Each polarization mode will encounter a
slightly different refractive index resulting in
each mode travelling at a slightly different
velocity.
• The resulting difference in propagation times
between the two orthogonal polarization modes
will cause pulse spreading.
 Modal Delay
• The maximum pulse broadening arising from the
modal delay is the difference between the travel
time Tmax of the longest ray congruence paths
and the travel time Tmin of the shortest ray
congruence paths.
• This broadening is simply obtained from ray
tracing and for a fiber of length L
• Fiber capacity is specified in terms of the bit rate-
distance product BL, that is, the bit rate times the
possible transmission distance L
• If it is assumed that the light rays are uniformly
distributed over the acceptance angles of the fiber,
then the rms impulse response due to
intermodal dispersion in a stepindex multimode
fiber can be estimated from the expression
• Absolute modal delay at the output of a graded-
index fiber that has a parabolic core
index profile
Factors Contributing to Dispersion
• The wave propagation constant is a
function of the wavelength, or, equivalently,
of the angular frequency w.
 is called the polarization-mode dispersion
(PMD) of the ideal uniform fiber
• The factor is called the GVD(group
velocity dispersion) parameter and the
dispersion D is related to through the
expression
 Group Delay
• As the signal propagates along the fiber, each
spectral component can be assumed to travel
independently and to undergo a time delay or
group delay per unit length in the
direction of the propagation given by
Extra :
is the velocity at which the energy in a pulse
travels along a fiber.
 Material Dispersion
• To calculate material-induced dispersion, we
consider a plane wave propagating in an infi
nitely extended dielectric medium that has a
refractive index equal to that of the
fiber core. The propagation constant is
thus given as