INTRODUCTION

Transmission of light via a dielectric

wave guide was proposed and
investigated in the beginning of 20th
century.
A transparent dielectric rod of silica
glass with RI around 1.5 cannot be
used alone.
A clad dielectric rod is used along
with core in the mid 1950s

Ray theory transmission

Refractive index : n=c/v
c=speed of light wave in free
space(3x108m/s).
v=velocity of light in non conducting
medium.
n=1.00 for air , n=1.33 for water,1.45
for silica glass,2.45 for diamond.

Reflection and Refraction

When a light ray
encounters a
boundary
separating two
different media ,
part of ray is
reflected back in
to first medium
and the remainder
is bent (refracted)
as it enters the
second material.

 At interface by Snells law

n1 sin1 =n2 sin2
1=angle between the incident ray and
the normal to the surface is known as angle
of incidence.
2=angle between the refracted ray and
the normal
to the surface is known as
angle of refraction.
As the angle of incidence becomes
larger ,refracted angle 2 approaches /2.
beyond this point no refraction is possible
and the light rays become totally internally

When the light ray in air is parallel to glass

surface, then 2=90 o so that sin 2= 1
critical angle is sin c = n2/n1

Typical structure of optical

fiber

Classification
Step index:-refractive index of core
is uniform and undergoes an abrupt
change at the cladding boundary.
Graded index:-core refractive index
varies as a function of radial
distance from the center of the fiber.
Step and graded index again divided
in to single mode and multimode.

Types of optical fibers

Step index fibers

Core diameter -50m (multi mode)

-1.10 m(single mode)
a)Single mode step index
Advantages of multimode step index

Multi mode step index

Allows finite No: of guided modes
through the channel.
No: of guided modes is dependent up
on physical parameters of fiber and
wave length of light transmitted
which is included in the normalized
frequency V of optical fiber
Total no of guided modes or mode
volume

Graded index fiber

Advantages
Less intermodal dispersion when
compared to multimode step index
fiber intermodal dispersion.

Transmission characteristics
1.Attenuation
The attenuation or transmission loss of optical
fibers is the most important factors in bringing
about
their
wide
acceptance
in
telecommunication.
expressed in the logarithmic unit of the decibel.
The decibel 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:

 In optical fiber communications the attenuation is

usually expressed in decibels per unit length (ie. dB
Km-1 following:

where dB is the signal attenuation per unit length in

decibels and L is the fiber length.
A number of mechanisms are responsible for signal
attenuation .these mechanisms are influenced by
material composition , preparation and purification
technique and wave guide structure.

2.Material absorption losses

Material absorption is a loss mechanism
related to the material composition and
the fabrication process for the fiber.
dissipation of transmitted optical power as
heat in the waveguide.
a)Intrinsic Absorption
An absolutely pure glass has little intrinsic
absorption due to its basic material
structure in the near infrared region.

 Absorption window 0.8-1.7 m

Infrared and far infrared (above7 m)absorption
bands due to interaction of photons with
molecules with in the glass.

b) Extrinsic absorption
optical fibers prepared by conventional
melting techniques
signal attenuation is extrinsic absorption
from
transition metal element impurities
impurities namely chromium and copper in
their worst valence state can cause
attenuation in excess of 1 dB km -1
by glass refining techniques such as vapour
phase oxidation which largely eliminates
the effects of these metallic impurities.

 Other major extrinsic loss mechanism is

caused by absorption due to water (as the
hydroxyl or OH ion) dissolved in the glass.
These hydroxyl groups are bonded into the
glass structure and have fundamental
stretching vibrations which occur at
wavelengths between 2.7 and 4.2 m
depending on group position in the glass
network.
The fundamental vibrations give rise to
overtones appearing almost harmonically at
1.38, 0.95 and
0.72 m.

3)LINEAR SCATTERING LOSSES

Linear scattering mechanisms cause the transfer of
some or all of the optical power contained within
one propagating mode to be transferred linearly
(proportionally to the mode power) into a different
mode.
This process tends to result in attenuation of the
transmitted light as the transfer may be to a leaky
or radiation mode which does not continue to
propagate within the fiber core, but is radiated from
the fiber.
It must be noted that as with all linear processes
there is no change of frequency on scattering

 Linear scattering may be categorized into two major types:

Rayleigh and Mie scattering. Both result from the non ideal
physical properties of the fiber.
Rayleigh Scattering
Rayleigh scattering is the dominant intrinsic loss mechanism in
the low absorption window between the ultraviolet and infrared
absorption tails.
It results from inhomogeneities of a random nature occurring on
a small scale compared with the wavelength of the light.
These inhomogeneities manifest themselves as refractive index
fluctuations and arise from density and compositional variations
which are frozen into the glass lattice on cooling.
The compositional variations may be reduced by improved
fabrication, but the index fluctuations caused by the freezing-in of
density inhomogeneities are fundamental and cannot be avoided.
The subsequent scattering due to the density fluctuations, which
is in almost all directions. produces an attenuation proportional to
1/4 following the Rayleigh scattering formula

Mie Scattering
Linear scattering may also occur at
inhomogeneities which are comparable
in size to the guided wavelength.
These result from the nonperfect
cylindrical structure of the waveguide
and may be caused by fiber
imperfections such as irregularities in
the core-cladding interface, core
cladding refractive index differences
along the fiber length, diameter
fluctuations, strains and bubbles.

 The scattering created by such

inhomogeneities is mainly in the forward
direction and is called Mie scattering.
The inhomogeneities may be reduced by:
(a) removing imperfections due to the
glass manufacturing process.
(b) carefully controlled extrusion and
coating of the fiber.
(c) increasing the fiber guidance by
increasing the relative refractive index
difference.

4)NONLINEAR SCATTERING LOSSES

Optical waveguides do not always behave as
completely linear channels whose increase in
output optical power is directly proportional to
the input optical power.
This non- linear scattering causes the optical
power from one mode to be transferred in either
the forward or backward direction to the same,
or other modes, at a different frequency.
It depends critically upon the optical power
density within the fiber and hence only becomes
significant above threshold power levels.

Stimulated Brillouin Scattering

Brillouin scattering may be regarded as the modulation
of light through thermal molecular vibrations within the
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.
This produces an optical frequency shift which varies
with the scattering angle because the frequency of the
sound wave varies with acoustic wavelength.
The frequency shift is a maximum in the backward
direction reducing to zero in the forward direction
making Brillouin scattering a mainly backward process.

Stimulated Raman Scattering

Stimulated Raman scattering is similar
to stimulated Brillouin scattering
except that a high frequency optical
photon rather than an acoustic phonon
is generated in the scattering process.
Also Raman scattering occurs in the
forward direction and may have an
optical power threshold of up to three
orders of magnitude higher than the
Brillouin threshold in a particular fiber.

5)Fiber bend losses

 Optical fibers suffer radiation losses at bends

or curves on their paths.
The part of the mode which is on the outside
of the bend is required to travel faster than
that on the inside so that a wave front
perpendicular to the direction of propagation
is maintained.
Hence part of the mode in the cladding needs
to travel faster than the velocity of light in
that medium.
As this is not possible, the energy associated
with this part of the mode is lost through
radiation.

 The loss can generally be represented

by a radiation attenuation coefficient
which has the form
where R is the radius of curvature of the
fiber bend and c1 and c2 are constants
which are independent of R.
losses may be reduced by:
(a) designing fibers with large relative
refractive index differences;
(b) operating at the shortest wavelength
possible.

DISPERSION
dispersion mechanisms within the fiber cause
broadening of the transmitted light pulses as
they travel along the channel.
it may be observed that each pulse broadens and
overlaps with its neighbours eventually becoming
indistinguishable at the receiver input. The effect
is known as intersymbol interference (ISI).
For no overlapping of light pulses down on an
optical fiber link the digital bit rate B T must be
less than the reciprocal of the broadened
(through dispersion) pulse duration (2). Hence:

 Another more accurate estimate of

the maximum bit rate for an optical
channel with dispersion may be
obtained by considering the light
pulses at the output to have a
Gaussian shape with an rms width of
.
The maximum bit rate is given
approximately by

 It may be observed that the multimode step index

fiber exhibits the greatest dispersion of a
transmitted light pulse
multimode graded index fiber gives a considerably
improved performance.
single mode fiber gives the minimum pulse
broadening
the information-carrying capacity of the fiber is
restricted by the amount of pulse dispersion per unit
length.
capacity of an optical fiber which is known as the
bandwidthlength product ie. (Bopt x L)
20 MHZ km, 1 Ghz km and 100 GHz km for
multimode step index multimode graded index and
single mode step index fibers respectively.

Intramodal dispersion
Results from finite spectral line width of optical
source.
Since optical sources donot emit just a single
frequency but a band of frequencies, then there
may be propagation delay differences between
spectral components of optical signals.
This causes broadening of each mode.
The delay difference may be caused by dispersive
properties of wave guide material(material
dispersion) and also guidance effect with in the
fiber structure(wave guide dispersion).

Intermodal dispersion
Pulse broadeningdue tomodal
dispersionresults from the
propagation delay differences
between modes with in a multimode
fiber.
As the different mode which
constitute a pulse with in a
multimode fiber travel along the
channel at different group velocities.

Overall dispersion

Optical fiber fabrication

The basic steps are
a) Preform fabrication
Metal halides react with oxygen to form white powder of
SiO2
b)Fiber drawing
Different methods for preform fabrication are
1)outside vapor phase oxidation(OVPO)
2)vapor axial deposition(VAD)
3)modified chemical vapor deposition(MCVD)
4)plasma activated chemical vapor
deposition(PCVD)

1)outside vapor phase oxidation(OVPO)

2)vapor axial deposition(VAD)

2)vapor axial
deposition(VAD)
SiO2 particles are formed in
same as OVPO
As these particles emerges from
silica torches, they are deposited
to the end surface of silica glass
rod which acts as seed.
Perform is fabricated
continuously
When preform is long enough
it ,goes directly to drawing tower

Advantages
1. Preform has no central hole as in
OVPO.
2.Prefom can be fabricated in
continuous lengths that can effect
process costs
3.Deposition chamber and zone
melting ring are connected tightly to
each other produces a clean
environment.

3)Modified chemical vapor deposition(MCVD)

3)Modified chemical vapor

deposition(MCVD)

4)plasma activated chemical vapor

deposition(PCVD)

Fiber drawing

Fiber drawing
process begins by feeding the glass preform
into the drawing furnace.
The drawing furnace softens the end of the
preform to the melting point.
Manufacturers then pull the softened preform
into a thin glass filament (glass fiber).
To protect the bare fiber from contaminants,
manufacturers add an acrylate coating in the
draw process. The coating protects the bare
fiber from contaminants such as atmospheric
dust and water vapor.

Double crucible method

Double crucible method

The double-crucible method is the
most common direct-melt process.
The double-crucible method combines
the molten rods into a single preform
using two concentric crucibles.
Optical fibers are drawn from this
molten glass using a similar fiber
drawing process as in vapor phase
oxidation.

Rod-in-tube method

Rod-in-tube method
Glass rod with higher refractive index
is placed in glass tube with a lower
refractive index of thermally
compatible material and unit is fed in
to furnace.
Glass tube fuses and softens with rod
and tapers to thin fine fiber
fabricated.