 is a method of transmitting information

from one place to another by sending

light through an optical fiber.
 The light forms an electromagnetic
carrier wave that is modulated to carry
information.
The process of communicating using
fiber-optics involves the following basic
steps:
 Creating the optical signal using a
transmitter,
 relaying the signal along the fiber,
ensuring that the signal does not
become too distorted or weak,
 and receiving the optical signal and
converting it into an electrical signal.
Electromagnetic Spectrum
 1880 – Alexander Graham Bell
 1930 – Patents on tubing
 1950 – Patent for two-layer glass wave-
guide
 1960 – Laser first used as light source
 1965 – High loss of light discovered
 1970s – Refining of manufacturing process
 1980s – OF technology becomes backbone
of long distance telephone networks in
NA.
 An optical fiber (or fibre) is a glass or
plastic fiber that carries light along its
length.

 Light is kept in the "core" of the optical

fiber by total internal reflection.
 Thinner
 Less Expensive
 Higher Carrying
Capacity
 Less Signal
Degradation&
Digital Signals
 Light Signals
 Non-Flammable
 Light Weight
 Much Higher Bandwidth (Gbps) -
Thousands of channels can be
multiplexed together over one strand of
fiber
 Immunity to Noise - Immune to
electromagnetic interference (EMI).
 Safety - Doesn’t transmit electrical
signals, making it safe in environments
like a gas pipeline.
 High Security - Impossible to “tap into.”
 Less Loss - Repeaters can be spaced
75 miles apart (fibers can be made to
have only 0.2 dB/km of attenuation)
 Reliability - More resilient than copper
in extreme environmental conditions.
 Size - Lighter and more compact than
copper.
 Flexibility - Unlike impure, brittle glass,
fiber is physically very flexible.
 greater capacity (bandwidth
up to 2 Gbps, or more)
 smaller size and lighter
weight
 lower attenuation
 immunity to environmental
interference
 highly secure due to tap
difficulty and lack of signal
radiation

10
 Disadvantages
include the cost of
interfacing
equipment
necessary to convert
electrical signals to
optical signals.
(optical transmitters,
receivers) Splicing
fiber optic cable is
also more difficult.
 expensive over short distance
 requires highly skilled installers
 adding additional nodes is difficult

12
 Telecommunicatio
ns
 Local Area
Networks
 Cable TV
 CCTV
 Optical Fiber
Sensors
 relatively new transmission medium used by
telephone companies in place of long-distance
trunk lines
 also used by private companies in
implementing local data networks
 require a light source with injection laser diode
(ILD) or light-emitting diodes (LED)
 fiber to the desktop in the future
14
 Optical fiber consists of a core,
cladding, and a protective outer
coating, which guides light along the
core by total internal reflection.
Core – thin glass center
of the fiber where light
travels.
Cladding – outer optical
material surrounding the
core
Buffer Coating – plastic
coating that protects
the fiber.
 The core, and the lower-
refractive-index cladding, are
typically made of high-quality silica
glass, though they can both be made
of plastic as well.
 consists of three concentric sections

plastic jacket glass or plastic

fiber core
cladding

19
20
 Contains
one or
several
glass fibers
at its core
 Surrounding
the fibers is
a layer of
glass called
cladding
3 TYPES OF OPTICAL
FIBERS

1. Plastic core and

cladding
2. Glass core with plastic
cladding ( called PCS
fiber- Plastic Clad Silica )
3. Glass core and glass
cladding ( called SCS -
Silica Clad Silica )
 Photons (light “particles”)
light represented by tiny bundles of
energy (or quanta), following straight
line paths along the rays.
PLANCK’S LAW

Ep =hf
Where,

Ep – energy of the photon (joules)

h = Planck’s constant = 6.625 x 10 -34 J-s
f – frequency o f light (photon) emitted
(hertz)
 Let medium 1 be glass ( n1 = 1.5 )
and medium 2 by ethyl alcohol (n2 =
1.36 ). For an angle of incidence of
30°, determine the angle of refraction.

 Answer: 33.47°
 The minimum angle of incidence at
which a light ray ay strike the
interface of two media and result in
an angle of refraction of 90° or
greater.
 The maximum angle in which
external light rays may strike the
air/glass interface and still propagate
down the fiber.
 θin (max) = sin-1

 Where,
 θin (max) – acceptance angle (degrees)
 n1 – refractive index of glass fiber core (1.5)
 n2 – refractive index of quartz fiber cladding
( 1.46 )
 Core and cladding with
different indices of
refraction

Core-cladding boundary
 Used to describe the light-gathering or
light-collecting ability of an optical fiber.
 In optics, the numerical aperture (NA) of
an optical system is a
dimensionless number that characterizes
the range of angles over which the system
can accept or emit light
The numerical aperture in
respect to a point P depends
on the half-angle θ of the
maximum cone of light that
can enter or exit the lens.
 Two main categories
of optical fiber used
in fiber optic
communications are
multi-mode optical fib
er
and
single-mode optical fi
ber
 Single-mode fibers – used to
transmit one signal per fiber (used in
telephone and cable TV). They have
small cores(9 microns in diameter)
and transmit infra-red light from
laser.
 Single-mode fiber’s smaller core
(<10 micrometres) necessitates
more expensive components and
interconnection methods, but allows
much longer, higher-performance
links.
 Multi-mode fibers – used to
transmit many signals per fiber
(used in computer networks). They
have larger cores(62.5 microns in
diameter) and transmit infra-red
light from LED.
 Multimode fiber has a
larger core (≥ 50
micrometres),
allowing less precise,
cheaper transmitters
and receivers to
connect to it as well
as cheaper
connectors.
 However, multi-mode fiber introduces
multimode distortion which often limits
the bandwidth and length of the link.
Furthermore, because of its higher
dopant content, multimode fiber is
usually more expensive and exhibits
higher attenuation.
 The index profile of an optical fiber is a
graphical representation of the magnitude
of the refractive index across the fiber.
 The refractive index is plotted on the
horizontal axis, and the radial distance
from the core axis is plotted on the
vertical axis.
 The boundary
between the core
and cladding may
either be abrupt,
in step-index fiber
, or gradual, in
graded-index fibe
r
 A step-index fiber has a central core with a
uniform refractive index. An outside
cladding that also has a uniform refractive
index surrounds the core;
 however, the refractive index of the
cladding is less than that of the central
core.
 In graded-index fiber, the index of
refraction in the core decreases
continuously between the axis and the
cladding. This causes light rays to bend
smoothly as they approach the cladding,
rather than reflecting abruptly from the
core-cladding boundary.
 multimode step-index fiber
 the reflective walls of the fiber move the
light pulses to the receiver
 multimode graded-index fiber
 acts to refract the light toward the center of
the fiber by variations in the density
 single mode fiber
 the light is guided down the center of an
extremely narrow core

53
 Single-mode
fiber
 Carries light
pulses along
single path
 Multimode
fiber
 Many pulses of
light generated
by LED travel at
different angles
fiber optic multimode
step-index

fiber optic multimode

graded-index

fiber optic single mode

55
light-emitting diodes
(LEDs)

laser diodes
 LEDs produce incoherent light

 laser diodes produce coherent light.

 LED is a forward-biased p-n junction,
emitting light through spontaneous
emission, a phenomenon referred to as
electroluminescence.
 The emitted light is incoherent with a
relatively wide spectral width of 30-60
nm.
 LED light transmission is also inefficient, with
only about 1 % of input power, or about 100
microwatts, eventually converted into
«launched power» which has been coupled
into the optical fiber.
 However, due to their relatively simple design,
LEDs are very useful for low-cost applications.
 Communications LEDs are most commonly
made from gallium arsenide phosphide
(GaAsP) or gallium arsenide (GaAs)
 Because GaAsP LEDs operate at a longer
wavelength than GaAs LEDs (1.3 micrometers
vs. 0.81-0.87 micrometers), their output
spectrum is wider by a factor of about 1.7.
 LEDs are suitable primarily for local-area-
network applications with bit rates of 10-100
Mbit/s and transmission distances of a few
kilometers.
 LEDs have also been developed that use
several quantum wells to emit light at different
wavelengths over a broad spectrum, and are
currently in use for local-area WDM networks.
A semiconductor laser emits light
through stimulated emission rather
than spontaneous emission, which
results in high output power (~100
mW) as well as other benefits related
to the nature of coherent light.
 The output of a laser is relatively directional,
allowing high coupling efficiency (~50 %) into
single-mode fiber. The narrow spectral width
also allows for high bit rates since it reduces the
effect of chromatic dispersion. Furthermore,
semiconductor lasers can be modulated directly
at high frequencies because of short
recombination time.
 Laser diodes are often directly
modulated, that is the light output is
controlled by a current applied
directly to the device.
 The main component of an optical
receiver is a photodetector that
converts light into electricity through
the photoelectric effect.
 The photodetector is typically a
semiconductor-based photodiode,
such as a p-n photodiode, a p-i-n
photodiode, or an avalanche
photodiode.
 Metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM)
photodetectors are also used due to
their suitability for circuit integration
in regenerators and wavelength-
division multiplexers.
 10-1

10-5 PIN
Bit Error Rate

APD
10-9

10-13

10-17

-60 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0

Average Received Optical Power (dBm)
Band Description Wavelength Range

O band original 1260 to 1360 nm

E band extended
1360 to 1460 nm

S band short wavelengths 1460 to 1530 nm

C band conventional ("erbium 1530 to 1565 nm

window")

L band long wavelengths 1565 to 1625 nm

U band 1625 to 1675 nm

Ultra-long wavelengths
 Two popular connectors used with fiber-
optic cable:
 ST connectors
 SC connectors
 Long Haul Fiber System Overview
• Types of Systems
• Pulse quality
• Bit Error Rate
• Noise
Metro CATV
Long Haul

Metro
Access

Metro

Submarine networks

73 OPT 471A © Russell A. Chipman