1

Light in the form of a plane wave in space

is said to be linearly polarized. Light is a
transverse electromagnetic wave, but
natural light is generally unpolarized, all
planes of propagation being equally
probable.

2
If light is composed of two plane waves of
equal amplitude by differing in phase by
90, then the light is said to be circularly
polarized. If two plane waves of differing
amplitude are related in phase by 90, or if
the relative phase is other than 90 then
the light is said to be elliptically polarized.

3



4
Linearly polarized


5
Circularly Polarized

6
Elliptically Polarized

7
Ray theory

Ray theory Describes reflection,
refraction
Wave theory Describes Diffraction,
Interference. Light waves are transverse.
8
Fig. 2-1: Spherical and plane wave fronts
9
Basic Optical laws
Speed of light in free space,
C = 3 x 10
8
m/s
C = f
Upon entering a dielectric, the wave
travels at a speed v < C, which is the
characteristic of the material.
10
Ration of speed of light in vacuum to that in
matter is the index of refraction n of the material.
n = C / v
Typical values of n are,
1 for air
1.33 for water
1.5 for glass
2.42 for diamond
higher n, lesser v, denser medium
11
Fig. 2-6: Refraction and reflection
12

Snells law
Total internal reflection
Numerical aperture ( NA)
Acceptance angle
13
Total Internal Reflection
u u
u u
u u
u u
u
u u
=
=
>
= =
>
1 1 2 2
1 3
1 2 1 2
2
1 2
1
1
:
sin sin
Re

90 deg
sin sin


c c
c
c
Snells Law
n n
flection Condition
When n n and as increases eventually
goes to rees and
n
n n or
n
is called the Critical angle
For there is no pro pagating refracted ray
14
NUMERICAL APERTURE / ACCEPTANCE ANGLE
15
ACCEPTANCE ANGLE FOR SINGLE MODE FIBER
16

Critical angle of incidence: If the angle of
incidence is increased, a point will
eventually be reached where the light ray
in air is parallel to the glass surface.
This point is known as Critical angle of
incidence.
17

When the incidence angle is greater than
the critical angle, the condition for the
internal reflection is satisfied.
When light is totally internally reflected, a
phase change o occurs in the reflected
wave.

18
Having considered the propagation of
light in an optical fiber through total
internal reflection at the core cladding
interface, it is useful to enlarge upon the
geometric optics approach with reference
to light rays entering the fiber.
19
Since only rays with sufficiently shallow
grazing angle i.e, with an angle to the
normal > u
C
, at the core cladding
interface are transmitted by total internal
reflection, it is clear that not all rays
entering the fiber core will continue to be
propagated down its length.
20

21
Cone of acceptance
The cone of acceptance is the angle within
which the light is accepted into the core
and is able to travel along the fiber.
22
Thus for rays to be transmitted by total
internal reflection within the fiber core,
they must be incident on the fiber core
within an acceptance cone defined by the
conical half angle.
Hence this is the maximum angle to the
axis at which light may enter the fiber in
order to be propagated and is referred to
as acceptance angle for the fiber.
23
Fiber modes and configurations
Mode: Each guided mode is a pattern of
electric and magnetic field distribution that
is repeated along the fiber at equal
intervals.
In low and medium loss fibers, core
material is glass and is surrounded by
either glass or plastic.
24
In higher loss fibers, core material is
plastic and is surrounded by plastic
cladding.
Types
Step index fibers
Graded index fibers
Modes
Single mode
Multi mode
25

(c) Single-mode fiber
(a) Multimode step index fiber
(b) Multimode graded index fiber


- multimode step index



- multimode graded index




- single-mode step index
26
27
MULTI MODE FIBER
28
MULTIMODE GRADED INDEX FIBER
29
Fig. 2-10: Comparison of fiber structures
30
Comparison between mono mode and
multi mode fibers.
Advantages of multimode
easy to launch optical power
Optical source can be LED
Disadvantage
Intermodal dispersion
Bandwidth limitation

31
Step index fiber structure
Two types of rays:
Meridonial rays
Skew rays
Meridonial rays: confined to the meridian
planes of the fiber.
bound rays and unbound rays
bound rays are trapped in the core and
propagate along the fiber, unbound rays are
refracted out of the fiber core.
32
Skew rays are not confined to a single
plane, but instead tend to follow a helical
path.
These are leaky rays, because they tend
to attenuate as the light travels along the
optical waveguide.
33
Fig. 2-11: Skew rays
34
Skew rays
35
Fig. 2-12: Meridional ray representation
36
Meridonial Rays
37
Axial Rays
38
Preferred sizes of multi mode glass
optical fibers and their NA
Core dia( m) Clad dia ( m) NA
50 125 0.19 0.25
62.5 125 0.27 0.31
85 125 0.25 0.30
100 140 0.25 0.3
39
Fig. 2-13: Light propagation
40
Wave representation in a dielectric
slab waveguide

Only waves that have those angle u which
satisfy the above condition will propagate
in the dielectric slab waveguide.
41
Mode theory of light
To attain a more detailed understanding
of the optical power propagation
mechanism in a fiber, it is necessary to
solve Maxwells equations subject to the
cylindrical boundary conditions at the
interface between the core and the
cladding of the fiber.
42
Boundary conditions in a
waveguide
The travel of energy down a wave guide
is similar, but not identical, to the travel of
electromagnetic waves in free space.
The difference is that the energy in a
waveguide is confined to the physical
limits of the guide.
Two conditions known as boundary
conditions are to be satisfied.
43
First boundary condition:
For an electric field to exist at the surface of
the conductor, it must be perpendicular to
the conductor. An electric field can not
exist parallel to a perfect conductor.

44
Second boundary condition:
For a varying magnetic field to exist, it must
form closed loops in parallel with the
conductor and be perpendicular to the
electric field.

45
In TE and TM modes, subscripts are used
to complete the description of the field
pattern.
In rectangular waveguides, the first
subscript indicates the number of half
wave patterns in the a dimension and the
second subscript indicates the number of
half wave patterns in the b dimension
46
In circular waveguides, the first subscript
indicates the number of full wave patterns
around the circumference of the
waveguide, second subscript indicates the
number of half wave patterns across the
diameter.
47
The field pattern shows that the guided
modes are not completely confined to the
central dielectric slab, i.e, they do not go to
zero at the guide cladding interface.
They extend partially into the cladding.
48
Fig. 2-14: Low-order-mode fields
49
The fields vary harmonically in the guiding
region of refractive index n1 and decay
exponentially outside this region.
For lower order modes the fields are
tightly concentrated near the center of the
slab with little penetration into the cladding
region.
50
For higher order modes, the fields are
distributed more towards the edges of the
guide and penetrate further into the
cladding region.
51
Solving Maxwells equations shows that in
addition to supporting a finite number of
guided modes, the optical fiber waveguide
has an infinite continuum of radiation
modes that are not trapped in the core and
guided by fiber but are still solutions of the
same boundary value problem.
52
Radiation field basically results from the
optical power i.e, outside the fiber
acceptance angle being refracted out of
the core.
This causes cladding modes to appear.
53
As the core and cladding modes
propagate along the fiber, mode coupling
occurs between the cladding modes and
the higher order core modes.
This coupling is because the electric field of
the guided core modes are not completely
confined to the core but extend partially into
the cladding and like wise for the cladding
modes.
54
A diffusion of power back and forth between the
core and cladding modes thus occurs resulting
in a loss of power from the core modes.
In practice, the cladding modes will be
suppressed by a lossy coating which covers the
fiber or they will scatter out of the fiber after
traveling a certain distance because of
roughness on the cladding surface.
55
In addition to bound and refracted modes,
a third category of modes called leaky
mode is present in optical fibers.
These leaky modes are only partially
confined to the core region, and attenuate
by continuously radiating power out of the
core as they propagate along the fiber.
56
This power radiation out of the waveguide
results from a quantum mechanical
phenomenon known as Tunnel effect.
As per the boundary conditions, for the
solution of Maxwells equations, a mode
remains guided as long as | satisfies the
condition n
2
K < | < n
1
K
| is propagation constant, K = 2t /
57
The boundary between truly guided
modes and leaky modes is defined by the
cutoff condition, | = n
2
K.
As soon as | becomes smaller than n
2
K,
power leaks out of the core into the
cladding region.
58
Leaky modes can carry significant
amounts of optical power in short fibers.
Most of these modes disappear after a few
centimeters, but a few have sufficiently low
losses to persist in fiber lengths of a Km.
59
Summary of modal concept.
An important parameter connected with
the cut off condition is the V number.
This is a dimensionless number that
determines how many modes a fiber can
support.
Except for the lowest order HE
11
mode,
each mode can exist only for values of V
that exceed a certain limiting value, with
each mode having a different V limit.
60
The modes are cut off when | = n
2
K, this
occurs when V 2.405.
HE
11
modes has no cut off and ceases to
exist only when the core diameter is zero.
This is the principle on which single mode
fibers are based.

61
The V number can also be used to
express to number of modes M in a multi
mode fiber when V is large.
An estimate of the total number of modes
supported in a fiber is M = (V
2
).
62
Since the field of a guided mode extends
partly into the cladding, a final quantity of
interest for a step index fiber is the
fractional power flow in the core and
cladding for a given mode.
63
V number approaches
cut off
Mode becomes radiative
V number far from cut off [P
clad
/ P] ~ 4 / 3\M
64
M V
2

As V |, M |, P
clad
+
but, higher V, higher M, not desirable for a
high bandwidth capability.
65
Single Mode Fibers
Core dia, few wavelengths ( 8 -12 m)
Small index difference between core and
cladding
V 2.405
Practical designs of single mode fibers core
cladding index difference varies between 0.2
and 1% and the core dia. Should be chosen to
be just below the cut-off of the first higher order
mode
Thus V slightly less than 2.4

66
Mode field Diameter
For single mode fibers the geometric
distribution of light in the propagating
mode is more important than the core
diameter and the numerical aperture
The parameter mode field diameter (MFD)
can be determined from the mode field
distribution of the fundamental LP
01
mode
67
Fig. 2-23:
Mode-field
diameter
68
Propagation modes in single mode
fibers
In any ordinary single mode fiber, there are
actually two independent, degenerative modes.
These modes are very similar but their
polarization planes are orthogonal.
In ideal fibers with perfect rotational symmetry,
the two modes are degenerative with equal
propagation constant, any polarization state
injected into the fiber will propagate unchanged.
69
Fig. 2-24: Polarizations of fundamental mode
70
In actual fibers there are imperfections,
they 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.
71
If light is injected into the fiber so that both
modes are excited, then one will be delayed in
phase relative to the other as they propagate.
When this phase difference is an integral
multiple of 2t, 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.
72
Graded index fiber structure
In the graded index fiber design the core
refractive index decreases continuously
with increasing radial distance r from the
center of the fiber, but is generally
constant in the cladding.
Determining the NA for the graded index
fibers is more complex since it is a
function of position across the core end
face.
73

The NA of a graded index fiber decreases
from NA(0) to zero, as r moves from the
fiber axis to the core cladding boundary.