OPTICAL FIBER COMMUNICATIONS

UNIT WISE POSSIBLE QUESTIONS

UNIT-I
1. (a)Draw the block diagram of a fiber optic communication system.
(b)Explain about cylindrical fibers with neat diagrams.
2. (a)Explain in detail about single mode fibers with diagrams.
(b)Explain about graded index fibers with diagrams.
3. (a)With the help of electromagnetic spectrum, explain about the historical development of optical
fiber communications.
(b)A graded index fiber has a core with a parabolic refractive index profile which has a diameter of 50
µm . The fiber has a NA of 0.2. Estimate the total number of guided modes propagating in the
fiber when it is operating at a wavelength of 1µm.
4.(a) Clearly explain the propagation modes in single-mode fibers.
(b) An optical fiber in air has an NA 0.4. Compare the acceptance angle for meridional rays with that
for skew rays which change direction by 100 degrees at each reflection.
5.(a) Explain about glass fibers and plastic optical fibers.
(b) A typical relative refractive index difference for an optical fiber designed for long distance
communication is 1%. Estimate the NA and solid acceptance angle in air for the fiber when the core
index is 1.46. Further, calculate the critical angle at the core-cladding interface within the fiber. It
may be assumed that the concepts of geometric optics hold for the fiber.
4. (a)What is the concept of total internal reflection? Explain with a suitable optical cable setup.
(b)A silica optical fiber with a core diameter large enough to be considered by ray theory analysis has
a core refractive index of 1.5 and cladding refractive index of 1.47. Determine:
(i) The critical angle at the core-cladding interface.
(ii) The NA for the fiber.
(iii) The acceptance angle in air for the fiber.
5.(a)Explain about the following:
(i) Refractive index. (ii) Snell’s law. (iii) Critical angle.
(b)Derive an expression for number of modes exists in step indexed fiber. Also explain about mode
field diameter.
6.(a)Discuss the advantages of optical fibers over conventional coaxial cables.
(b)With respect to bandwidth explain how optical fibers are advantages over coaxial cables.
7.(a)Explain the function of each block with a help of neat block diagram of a digital optical fibre
communication system.
(b)If a single mode fibre has a step index of 0.03, the core refractive index is 1.45 at the cut off
wavelength 1300 nm, then calculate the core radius.
8. (a)What are the reasons for the signal to get distorted as it travels along a fibre?
(b)Using ray theory transmission approach, explain the following:
(i) Total internal reflection ad critical angle.
(ii) Acceptance angle.
(iii) Numeral aperture.
9. (a)Explain in detail about the mode theory for circular waveguide.
(b)Compare step index and gradded index fibres in all aspects.
UNIT-II
1.(a) What is attenuation? Explain.
(b)When the mean optical power launched into an 8 km length of fiber is 120 the mean optical

power at the fiber output is 3 . Determine.

(i) The overall signal attenuation or loss in decibels through the fiber assuming there are no
Connectors or splices.
(ii) The signal attenuation per km for the fiber.
(iii) The overall signal attenuation for a 10 km optical link using the same fiber with splices at
1 km intervals, each giving an attenuation of 1 dB.
(iv) The numerical “Input/output” power ratio in (iii).
2. (a)What is material absorption? Explain about intrinsic and extrinsic absorption.
(b)The polarization mode dispersion in a uniformly birefringent single-mode fiber is 300 ps/km.
Calculate the maximum bit rate that may be obtained on a 20 km repeater less link assuming only
polarization mode dispersion to occur.
3.(a) What is linear scattering? Explain about Rayleigh and Mie scattering.
(b) A 3.5 km length of two polarization mode PM fiber has a polarization crosstalk of 27 dB at its
output end. Determine the mode coupling parameter for the fiber.
4. (a) What is dispersion? Explain in detail.
(b)Two polarization maintaining fibers operating at a wavelength of 1.3µm have beat lengths of
0.7mm and 80 m. Determine the model birefringence in each case and comment on the results.
5. (a) Explain about bending losses in optical fibers.
(b) Explain about intermodal dispersion and chromatic dispersion.
6. (a) Explain about intrinsic and extrinsic absorption exists in optical fibers.
(b) Explain about the following with the help of relevant expressions:
(i) Material dispersion. (ii) Wave guide dispersion.
7. (a) How do you find whether an optical fiber link is limited by attenuation or by dispersion? Explain
clearly.
(b) Derive an expression for pulse spreading in a step index multi mode fiber due to intermodal
dispersion.
8. (a)Discuss briefly about the leaky modes and mode coupling losses in the fibre optic communication.
(b) Find the radius of curvature R at which the number of modes decreases by 50 percent in a gladded
index fiber take 𝛼=2, 𝜂2=1.5 , Δ = 0.01, a = 25 𝜇m, 𝜆 = 1.3 𝜇m.
9. (a) What are the principle requirements of a good conducts design?
(b) A single mode fiber operating at the wavelength of 1.3 𝜇𝜇m is found to have a total material
dispersion of 2.81 ns and a total waveguide dispersion of 0.495 ns. Determine the received pulse
width and approximate bit rate of the filter if the transmitted pulse has a width of 0.5 ns.
10. (a) Explain attenuation caused by absorption, scattering losses and bending losses.
(b) Find the cutoff wavelength for a step index fiber having core refractive index of 1.48, radius of
core is 4.8 𝜇m and relative index difference is 0.25%.
11. A multimode gradded index fiber exhibits the pulse broadening of 0.2 𝜇 over a distance of 15 km
estimate:
(i) Optimum bandwidth of fiber.
(ii) Dispersion per unit length.
(iii) Bandwidth length product.
UNIT-III
1.(a)Draw a schematic of edge emitting double hetero junction LED and explain its working in detail.
(b) With respect to LED, what is internal quantum efficiency and derive the expression for the lifetime
reduction caused by interfacial recombination.
2. (a)Define quantum efficiency and LED power. Explain.
(b)A planar LED is fabricated from gallium arsenide which has a refractive index of 3.6.
(i) Calculate the optical power emitted into air as a percentage of the internal optical power for
the device when the transmission factor at the crystal-air interface is 0.68.
(ii) When the optical power generated internally is 50% of the electrical power supplied,
determine the external power efficiency.
3. (a)With the help of neat diagram, explain the following LED structures:
(i) Planar LED. (ii) Dome LED.
(b)A DH surface emitter which has an emission area diameter of 50 is butt jointed to an 80
core step index fiber with a NA of 0.15. The device has a radiance of 30 Wsr-1 cm-2 at a constant
operating drive current. Estimate the optical power coupled into the fiber if it is assumed that the
Fresnel reflection coefficient at the index matched fiber surface is 0.01.
4. (a)Write short notes on LASER diode modes.
(b)A ruby LASER containing a crystal length 4 cm with a refractive index of 1.78. The peak emission
wavelength from the device is 0.55 . Determine the number of longitudinal modes and their
frequency separation
5. (a)What is threshold condition for LASER oscillation? Explain in detail.
(b) The total efficiency of an injection LASER with a GaAs active region is 18%. The voltage applied to
the device is 2.5 volts and the band gap energy for GaAs is 1.43 eV. Calculate the external power
efficiency of the device.
6. (a)Derive an expression for threshold conditions of laser diode.
(b)Explain the following:
(i) Laser diode rate equation.
(ii) External quantum efficiency.
(iii)Resonant frequencies.
7. (a) Explain different structure of lasers with neat sketches.
(b) Explain the surface emitters and edge emitter LEDS.
8. (a)Establish the threshold gain condition for lasing to occur in a fabry-perot resonator based laser
diode.
(b)Write short notes on external quantum efficiency.
9. An LED has a 500 𝜇𝜇f space charge capacitance, 1.0 𝜌𝜌𝜌𝜌 saturation current and a 5 ns minority
carrier lifetime find out the half current and 10 to 90 percent risk time when the drive current is (i) 50
mA and (ii) 100 mA respectively.
10. (a)Explain the following terms:
(i) Quantum efficiency
(ii) Responsivity
(b)Explain with the neat diagram the digital signal transmission through on optical data line.
11. (a) Derive an expression for power coupling from a large surface emitting LED into smaller step
index fiber.
(b) Distinguish between connection losses (intrinsic losses) and extrinsic losses.
12. (a)What power is radiated by an LED if its quantum efficiency is 3% and the peak wavelength is
670 nm?

(b) Derive the expression for losing and threshold condition.

13. (a) What is LASER diode? Compare its performance with that of LED.
(b) A practical surface LED has 50 𝜇m diameter emitting area and operates at peak modulation

current of 100 mA. What is BW of GaAL AS LED having a 2.0 𝜇m active area thickness assume /s,

𝛿= cm/sec.

UNIT-IV
1. (a)Write short notes on fiber-to-fiber joints.
(b)What is the function of photo detector? Compare various photo detectors.
2. (a)Discuss the various lensing schemes for coupling improvement.
(b)What is the temperature effect on avalanche gain? Explain.
3. (a)What is the source of power launching? Explain.
(b)What is detector response time? Explain.
4. (a)What is fiber splicing? Explain.
(b)What are the physical principles of photo diode? Explain.
5. (a)Explain the different noises present in photodiodes.
(b)An InGaAs PIN photodiode has the following parameters at a wavelength of 1300 nm, ID = 4 nA, η =
0.90, RL = 1000 Ω and the surface leakage current is negligible. The incident optical power is 300 nW and
the receiver bandwidth is 20 MHz. Find: (i) Quantum noise current. (ii) Dark current noise. (iii) Thermal
noise current.
6. (a)List the factors involved in launching optical power from a light source to a fiber.
(b)What is a pig-tailed device? List out the advantages and disadvantages of pig tailing either as fibre
optic source or as fiber optic detector.
7. (a)Draw the schematic block diagram of optical receiver and explain each block in detail.
(b)Discuss the difference between a dispersion limited and an attenuation limited fiber optic link.
8. (a)Explain the principle behind the operation of an avalanche photo diode.
(b)Give the comparison of PIN and ADP photo detector.
9. Describe about the RAPD structure.
10. (a)Explain about avalanche photo diode.
(b)A photo diode has quantum efficiency of 65 %. When photons of energy 1.5 x 10-19 J are incident on
it? (i) What is the wave length of the photo diode? (ii) Calculate the incident optical power required to
obtain a photo current of 2.5, when the photo diode is operating as described above.
11. (a)Compare different photo detectors.
(b)Derive the expressions for photo detector noise and detector response time.
UNIT-V

1. (a)What is the significance of system consideration in point-to-point fiber links? Explain.

(b)What is the source of power penalty? Explain.
2. (a)Define CNR. Derive the mathematical form.
(b)Write short notes on multi-channel frequency modulation.
3. (a)With a neat block diagram explain multi-channel amplitude modulation.
(b)What are different elements of an angle link? Explain.
4. (a)Design an optical fiber link for transmitting 15 Mb/sec of data for a distance of 4 km with BER of

(b)Write short notes on error control in digital link.

5. (a)Explain the following in respect of digital link:
(i) Point to point links. (ii) Power penalties.
(b)Explain about analog links in optical communication.
6. (a)Explain the following terms:
(i) Quantum efficiency
(ii) Responsiuity
(b)Explain with the neat diagram the digital signal transmission through on optical data line.
7. Discuss about the point to point fibre optic link.
8. Explain the procedure to determine the maximum allowable RZ and NRZ data rates from rise time
budget analysis.
9. (a)Write modified expression for SNR at the output of on ADP based analog receiver.
(b)Calculate the maximum bit rate that may be achieved on the fiber link length of 50 km without
repeaters and using NRZ format. Transmitter rise time is 4 ns. Intermodal rise time is 5 ns. Intramodal
rise time 1 ns. Receiver rise time is 2 ns.
10. (a) Derive an expression for carrier to noise ratio of analog link.
(b)Explain about multi channel transmission techniques.
11. (a)With a neat block diagram, explain the process of digital signal transmission.
(b)Write short notes on line coding in optical links.