Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION TO FIBER OPTIC

COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

Fiber-Optic Communications Systems, Third Edition.

Govind P. Agrawal

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Chapter Objectives
 Understand and discuss Historical Perspective: Need for Fiber
Optic Communications, Evolution of Lightwave Systems.
 Describe Basic Concepts: Analog and Digital Signals, Channel
Multiplexing, Modulation Formats.
 Describe Optical Communication Systems
 Describe Lightwave System Components: Optical Fibers, Optical
Transmitters, Optical Receivers
 Apply the basic knowledge (by Optiwave Simulation Software) to
determine the quality parameters of Fiber Optic Communication
Systems

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 Lecture 1
Introduction to
Fiber Optic Communication Systems (1)

 Understand and discuss Historical Perspective: Need for Fiber

Optic Communications, Evolution of Lightwave Systems.

 Describe Basic Concepts: Analog and Digital Signals,

Channel Multiplexing, Modulation Formats.

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The name of this communication system?
The name of this communication system?
Microwave communication systems – wireless systems
 The name of this communication system?

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 The name of this communication technique?

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Multi Access of Satelitte Communication System

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 The name of this communication system?

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 The Modern Communication Systems:
 Microwave Communication System (Including
Mobilphone System)
 Satellite Communication System
 Fiber Optic Communication System (FOCS)

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 ADVANTAGES OF FIBER OPTICAL
COMMUNICATIONS
 1. Enormous Bandwidths
 2. Low transmission loss
 3. Immunity to cross talk
 4. Electrical Isolation
 5. Small size and weight
 6. Signal security
 7. Flexibility
 8. Low cost and availability
 9. Reliability
The lightwave technology, together with microelectronics, is
believed to be a major factor in the “information age.”

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 ADVANTAGES OF FIBER OPTICAL
COMMUNICATIONS
 1. Enormous Bandwidths
 2. Low transmission loss
 3. Immunity to cross talk
 4. Electrical Isolation
 5. Small size and weight
 6. Signal security
 7. Flexibility
 8. Low cost and availability
 9. Reliability
The lightwave technology, together with microelectronics, is
believed to be a major factor in the “information age.”

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 ADVANTAGES OF FIBER OPTICAL
COMMUNICATIONS
 1. Enormous Bandwidths
 2. Low transmission loss
 3. Immunity to cross talk
 4. Electrical Isolation
 5. Small size and weight
 6. Signal security
 7. Flexibility
 8. Low cost and availability
 9. Reliability
The lightwave technology, together with microelectronics, is
believed to be a major factor in the “information age.”

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 ADVANTAGES OF FIBER OPTICAL
COMMUNICATIONS
 1. Enormous Bandwidths
 2. Low transmission loss
 3. Immunity to cross talk
 4. Electrical Isolation
 5. Small size and weight
 6. Signal security
 7. Flexibility
 8. Low cost and availability
 9. Reliability
The lightwave technology, together with microelectronics, is
believed to be a major factor in the “information age.”

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 ADVANTAGES OF FIBER OPTICAL
COMMUNICATIONS
 1. Enormous Bandwidths
 2. Low transmission loss
 3. Immunity to cross talk
 4. Electrical Isolation
 5. Small size and weight
 6. Signal security
 7. Flexibility
 8. Low cost and availability
 9. Reliability
The lightwave technology, together with microelectronics, is
believed to be a major factor in the “information age.”

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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Need for Fiber-Optic Communications

 1830s - electrical communications - Morse code (B~10b/s).
Used of intermediate relay stations allowed communication
over long distances (~1000 km)
 1866 - transatlantic telegraph cable
 1876 - The invention of the telephone
 1940 - coaxial-cable system, 3-MHz system, transmitting 300
voice channels
 1948 - First microwave system, frequency of 4 GHz (B~100
Mb/s)
 1975 - Coaxial system (B~274 Mb/s) repeater spacing (~1 km)

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 1940

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 + SEA-ME-WE 3 or South-East Asia - Middle East - Western
Europe 3; 39,000 km long; completed: 2000
+ WDM-SDH Technology
+ The cable system itself has two fibre pairs, each carrying 48
wavelengths of 10 Gbit/s, total capacity of 0.96 Tbit/s=960 Gbit/s
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 + To carry telephone, internet, multimedia and various broadband data
applications.
+ 18,800 kilometres long; total capacity of 1.28 Tbit/s.
+ Dense wavelength Division Multiplexing DWDM
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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

 Need for Fiber-Optic Communications

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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Need for Fiber-Optic Communications

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USABLE SPECTRUM OF SILICA FIBER

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Attenuation versus Wavelength

Water
spike

2000s

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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Need for Fiber-Optic Communications
 1970, fiber losses < 20 dB/km in the wavelength region near 1 μm.
GaAs LD were demonstrated. The simultaneous availability of
compact optical sources and a low-loss optical fibers led to a
worldwide effort for developing FOCS.
 The progress has indeed been rapid as evident from an increase in the
bit rate by a factor of 100,000 over a period of less than 25 years.
 Transmission distances have also increased from 10 to 10,000 km over
the same time period.
 As a result, the bit rate–distance product of modern lightwave systems
can exceed by a factor of 107 compared with the first-generation
lightwave systems.
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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

 Evolution of Lightwave Systems

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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

 Evolution of Lightwave Systems

The bit rate–distance product of modern lightwave systems can

exceed by a factor of 107 compared with the first-generation
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lightwave systems. 28
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Evolution of Lightwave Systems

 The first generation operated near 0.8 μm and used GaAs
semiconductor lasers, 1980 in commercial. B~45 Mb/s; repeater
spacings of up to 10 km;
 The second generation was in the early 1980s; multimode B<100
Mb/s; 1981 demonstrated at 2 Gb/s over 44 km of single-mode
fiber. 1987 in Commercial, B~1.7 Gb/s, repeater spacing of about
50 km. Howerver, the fiber losses~0.5 dB/km in 1.3 μm;
 The third-generation operated at 1.55 μm. 1990 in commercial,
used dispersion-shifted fibers and lasers oscillating in a single
longitudinal mode; B~2.5 Gb/s-10Gb/s; Using electronic repeaters
spaced apart typically by 60–70 km;

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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

 Evolution of Lightwave Systems

 The fourth generation used optical amplification for increasing
the repeater spacing and of wavelength-division multiplexing
(WDM) for enhancing the bit rate before and after 1992; bit rate
of 10Tb/s by 2001.
 The fifth generation was concerned with extending the
wavelength range over which a DWDM system can operate
simultaneously (S/C/L band). The Raman amplification
technique can be used for signals in all three wavelength bands.

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BASIC CONCEPTS
 Analog an Digital Signals

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BASIC CONCEPTS
 Analog an Digital Signals

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BASIC CONCEPTS
 Channel Multiplexing

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BASIC CONCEPTS
 Modulation Formats

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BASIC CONCEPTS

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 BASIC CONCEPTS
 Modulation Formats
In the case of analog modulation: AM, FM and PM
The same modulation techniques: ASK, FSK and PSK
depending on whether the amplitude, frequency, or phase of
the carrier wave is shifted between the two levels of a binary
digital signal
The simplest technique consists of simply changing the signal
power between two levels, one of which is set to zero: on–off
keying (OOK) (ASK) to reflect the on–off nature of the
resulting optical signal. Most digital lightwave systems employ
OOK in combination with PCM.

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 Lecture 2
Introduction to
Fiber Optic Communication Systems (2)
 Describe Optical Communication Systems
 Describe Lightwave System Components: Optical
Fibers, Optical Transmitters, Optical Receivers
 Apply the basic knowledge of Optiwave Simulation
Software to determine the quality parameters of Fiber
Optic Communication Systems

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OPTICAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

 Optical communication systems use high carrier frequencies (200

THz). Microwave systems use smaller carrier frequency (20 GHz).
An increase in the information capacity of optical communication
systems by a factor of up to 10,000 is expected simply because of
such high carrier frequencies used for lightwave systems.

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Typical Fiber Optic communication systems

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 Some of typical equipments in FOCS

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LIGHTWAVE SYSTEM COMPONENTS

 Optical Fibers as a Communication Channel

o Most lightwave systems use optical fibers as the

communication channel because silica fibers can transmit

light with losses as small as 0.2 dB/km. Optical power

reduces to only 1% after 100 km

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 1620 nm

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 100
Fundamental limits of silica fibers 50
Water spike
10
Band Description Wavelength (nm) 5

Loss (dB/km)
1
O-band Original 1260-1360
0.5
E-band Extended 1360-1460
S-band Short 1460-1530
0.1 Rayleigh scattering
C-band Conventional 1530-1565
L-band Long 1565-1625 Infrared absorption
U-band Ultra-long 1625-1675
0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8
Wavelength (mm)
 Inter- and Intra-modal dispersion
 C-band: supports early EDFA  Attenuation (Loss)
 C+L-band: support for EDFA’s of today  Non-linear effects
 Raman amplifiers can be used over all bands - new – Four-wave mixing (FWM)
(medium loss) bands are now applicable (as S & U – Stimulated Raman & Brillouin
bands) scattering (SRS,SBS)
 New fibers can reduce loss at E & S bands (however, – Cross-phase & self-phase modulation (SPM,XPM)
EDFA does not work here & Raman gain small)  Polarization fluctuations
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ADVANTAGES OF OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS

 1. Enormous Bandwidths.
 2. Low transmission loss .
 3. Immunity to cross talk
 4. Electrical Isolation
 5. Small size and weight
 6. Signal security
 7. Flexibility
 8. Low cost and availability
 9. Reliability
The lightwave technology, together with microelectronics, is
believed to be a major factor in the “information age.”

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ADVANTAGES OF OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS

5. Small size and weight

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ADVANTAGES OF OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS

5. Small size and weight

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Linear and Decibel (dB) optical power units

 Optical power P expressed in W, mW, dBm

 P[dBm] = 10 log10 (P/1mW)

Linear dBm

1W +30 dBm
Typical EDFA output power
100 mW +20 dBm
Typical output power
10 mW +10 dBm
of a semiconductor
1 mW 0 dBm DFB laser
100 W -10 dBm
10 W -20 dBm
1 W -30 dBm Typical sensitivity of a
10-Gbit/s receiver

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 Typical loss value of optical components

Linear Decibel

1000 +30 dB Gain in the small signal regime of EDFAs

Gain

10 +10 dB Gain with saturating input signal

Loss

0.977 -0.1 dB Splice loss between two identical fibres

0.955 -0.2 dB Cable fiber loss per km

Loss of a 10% tap coupler
0.9 -0.5 dB Isolator, 1480/1550 nm multiplexer
0.5 -3.0 dB Bulk optical filter

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Introduction on Optiwave Simulation Software

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Project Structure

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OptiSystem Graphical User Interface

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Placing Components in the Main Layout

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Lab 1 - Determining critical parameters of Fiber
Optic Communication system

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Setting the working parameters for FOCS

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Laser Spectrum

Spectrum at the Laser output and at the PhotoDiode input

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Optical powers at the Modulator output
and at the Photodiode input

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The quality parameters: BER, Q of FOCS

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