EC8751 OPTICAL COMMUNICATION UNIT I INTRODUCTION TO OPTICAL FIBERS

UNIT I
INTRODUCTION TO OPTICAL FIBERS

Introduction- general optical fiber communication system- basic optical laws and definitions – optical
modes and configurations - mode analysis for optical propagation through fibers - modes in planar wave
guide-modes in cylindrical optical fiber- transverse electric and transverse magnetic modes- fiber
materials-fiber fabrication techniques-fiber optic cables classification of optical fiber-single mode fiber-
graded index fiber.

Introduction
Evolution of fiber optic system
General optical fiber communication system
Basic Optical Laws and Definitions
Refractive index
Reflection and refraction:
Representation of the critical angle and total internal reflection at a glass–air interface
Optical Fiber Modes and Configurations
Fiber types
Rays and modes
Step-index fiber structure
Ray optics representation
Wave representation in a Dielectric slab waveguide
Mode analysis for optical propagation through fibers
Modes in planar wave guide
Modes in cylindrical optical fiber
Transverse electric and transverse magnetic modes
Mode theory of Circular Wave guides
Overview of Modes
Key Modal concepts
Electromagnetic mode theory for optical propagation
Linearly Polarized Modes
Fiber materials
Fiber fabrication techniques
Fiber optic cables classification of optical fiber (Chapter 1.5.1)
Single Mode Fiber structure
Graded Index fiber structure
Introduction:
 The communications medium in most electronic communications systems is either a wire
conductor cable or free space. But, now a new medium is growing in popularity, the fiber optic
cable.
1. Explain in detail about fiber optic cable and it’s needs. Discuss and advantages and
disadvantages of optical fiber communication.

Fiber optic cable

 A fiber-optic cable is a light pipe.
 It is used to carry a light beam from one place to another.
 Light is an electromagnetic signal like a radio wave.
 Light can be modulated by information signal and sent over the fiber-optic cable.
 The frequency of light is extremely high:
o It can accommodate very wide bandwidths of information.
o Extremely high data rates can be achieved with excellent reliability.

Advantages of optical fiber communication

 Larger Bandwidth (Gbps) - Thousands of channels can be multiplexed over one strand of fiber.
 Low Loss – number of repeaters reduced (fibers can be made to have only 0.5 dB/km of
attenuation).
 Low cost - silica is abundant raw material.
 High Security - Impossible to ‘tap into’.
 Small Size and less weight - easy to handle.
 Immunity to Noise - Immune to electromagnetic interference (EMI).
 Safety – no electric hazards.
 Flexibility - Fiber cables can be bend or twisted without damage.

Disadvantages
 Small size and brittleness – more difficult to work with.
 High installation cost.
 Splicing cost is high.

Need of Fiber Optic Communication

 Fiber optic communication system has developed as most important communication system.
 Compared to traditional system because of following requirements
: In long haul transmission system
1. There is need of low loss transmission medium.
2. There is need of compact and least weight transmitters and receivers.
3. There is need of increased span of transmission.
4. There is need of increased bit rate-distance product.
A fiber optic communication system fullfills these requirements, hence most widely accepted.

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Evolution of Optical Communication:

2. Discuss about the evolution of Optical Communication

Discuss the evolution of fiber optic communication system. [Nov 2019]

Evolution of Optical Communication:

 In 1880, Alexander Graham Bell experimented with an apparatus called a photophone.

 The photophone was a device constructed from mirror and selenium detectors that transmitted
around waves over a beam of light.

Figure 1: Operating ranges of components

Figure:
 It shows the operating range of optical fiber systems
 It also shows the characteristics of the four key components (the optical fiber, light sources,
photodetectors and optical amplifiers) of a link.
 The dashed vertical lines indicate - the centers of the three main operating windows of optical

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fiber systems.

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Generations:
First generation links:
 The first-generation links operated at around 850nm.
 It was a low-loss transmission window of the early silica fibers.
 These links used existing GaAs based optical sources, silicon photodetectors, and multimode
fibers.
 Limitations:
o Intermodal dispersion and fiber loss limited the capacity of these systems.

Laser:
 The laser was invented in 1960.
 The laser has the properties of high output power, high frequency of operation and capability of
carrying an extremely wide bandwidth signal.
 These properties make laser ideally suited for fiber-optic communications.

 The initial telephone system field trials in the USA were carried out in 1977 by GTE in Los Angels
and by AT&T in Chicago.
 Intercity applications ranged from 45 to 140 Mb/s with repeater spacing of around 10km.

Development of optical sources and photodetectors:

 The development of optical sources and photodetectors capable of operating at 1300nm allowed a
shift in the transmission wavelength from 800nm to 1300nm.
 Intercity applications first multimode fibers were used but in 1984 single - mode fibers were used
for larger bandwidth.

 Bit rates for long-haul links typically ranges between 155 and 622 MB/s, in some cases it is upto
2.5Gb/s, over repeater spacings of 40km.
 Both multimode and single mode 1300-nm fibers are used in local area networks
o The bit rates range from 10 to 100Mb/s over distances ranging from 500m to tens of
kilometers.

 High quality lasers : In 1996, high quality lasers and receivers allowed single-wavelength
transmission rates of around 10 Gb/s (OC-192).
 Optical amplifier:
o The introduction of optical amplifier in 1989 gave a major boost to fiber transmission
capacity.
o GaAlAs-based solid-state optical amplifiers were introduced first.
o The most successful and widely used devices are Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers (EDFAs)
operating at around 1550nm.
o Prascodymium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers (PDFAs) operating at around 1300nm also
developed (but are still undergoing refinement).

 Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM):

o In 1970's researchers started to use Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) in the
optical fibers.
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 o At the time it was very complex.
o The use of WDM offers a further boost in fiber transmission capacity.
o The basis of WDM is to use multiple sources operating at slightly different wavelengths to
transmit several independent information streams over the same fiber.
o Mid-1990's, a combination of EDFAs and WDM was used to boost fiber capacity to higher
levels and to increase the transmission distance.

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Particulars 1st window 2nd window 3rd window

Range of 850nm 1310nm 1550nm (lowest attenuation &
operation (repeaterless transmission large dispersion)
because of minimum
dispersion)
Sources GaAlAs based optical Alloys of InGaAsP In Ga As P
sources
Detector Silicon photo detector In Ga As In Ga As
Advantage 1. Low loss and low High capacity terrestrial and
dispersion because of optical under sea transmission link.
amplifier like PDFA EDFA (Erbium Doped Fiber
----------- (Praseodymium Doped Fiber Amplifier)
Amplifier).
2. Long distance high capacity
transmission
Disadvantage Intermodal dispersion and Less attenuation Less dispersion
fiber loss limits the
capacity of transmission
Fiber Types Multi Mode fiber (MMF), Both SMF, MMF are used in SMF–long distance
single mode fiber (SMF) the LAN .bit rate is 10 to 100 communication
used for long distance Mbps over 500m to various DSF – Dispersion shifted fiber
communication kms. The DSF is used to avoid
dispersion at 1550nm.

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1.2 General optical fiber communication system
3. With the help of a neat diagram explain the different components of a fiber link. [Dec 2013,
Dec 2007, Dec 2008] (or)
Explain the fundamental blocks of an optical communication link with neat block diagram.
[Dec 2016] (or)
With the neat block diagram, explain the fundamental blocks of optical
fiber communication. [April 2018]

Figure 2: Major elements of an optical fiber transmission link.

 An optical fiber transmission link comprises (includes) the elements shown in Figure 2.
 The main sections are a transmitter, cable and receiver.
 Transmitter:
 It consists of a light source and its associated drive circuitry.
 Drive circuit: The drive circuit is used to drive the electrical signal to the light source.
 Light source:
 It converts the electric signal into an optical signal.
 Linear variation in drive current results in linear change in the optical output
power.
 The optical source is called square-law device.
 Example: Semiconductor laser, LED.
 Cable:
 The fiber optic cables are used as channels.
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  Fiber-optic cables are made from glass and plastic.
 Glass has the lowest loss but is brittle (easily broken).
 Plastic is cheaper and more flexible, but has high attenuation.
 For the long distance optical communication, repeaters are used to compensate the
attenuation loss.

 Repeaters:
 It contains optical receiver, amplifier and optical transmitter.
 In long-distance links, periodical amplification and reshaping of the signal is needed.
 Optical receiver:
 It converts received optical signal into electric signal.
 Then reshaped and sent to the electric input of the amplifier.
 Amplifier
 It receives the electric signal from the optical receiver.
 It amplifies the electric signal.
 Then send the electrical signal to the optical transmitter.
 Optical transmitter:
 It converts the electric signal back to an optical signal.
 The transmitter sends the optical signal down the optical fiber waveguide.
 Receiver:
 It consists of a photodetector plus amplification and signal-restoring circuitry.
 The photodetector will detect the optical signal.
 It converts them into an electrical current.
 Detector output current contains the transmitted information.
 This electric current developed by the detector is proportional to the power in the incident
optical signal.

 Additional components in optical communication link are

 Connectors, splices, couplers or beam splitters and regenerators.

The information may be in the form of analog or digital

Sources: It converts electrical to optical signal. The sources are Laser, LED
Detectors: It converts optical to electrical signal . The detectors are PIN photodiode, Avalanche Photodiode.
Couplers: It is used as Beam splitter , combiner
Connectors: Demountable joint
Splices: It is a permanent or semi permanent joint used to extend the physical length of the fiber.
Optical amplifier: EDFA is used to increase the optical power of the signal.
Regenerators: To restore the original signal shape

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 4. Explain the cabling in optical communication system.

 The cabled fiber is one of the most important elements in an optical fiber link.
 The cable may contain copper wires
 It protects the glass fibers during installation and service.
 It also supplies power to the optical repeaters.

 Optical repeaters:
 The repeaters are needed for periodically amplifying and reshaping the signal in long-
distance links.
 The cable contains several cylindrical hair-thin glass fibers, each is an independent
communication channel.

Figure 3:
Optical fiber cables can be on poles, in
ducts, and undersea or buried directly into
the ground

 Installation:
 Similar to copper cables, the installation of optical fiber cables can be either aerial (above ground),
in ducts, undersea, or buried directly to the ground, as Figure 3 illustrates.

 Cable lengths will range from several hundred meters to several kilometers.
 The shorter segments tend to be used when the cables are pulled through ducts.
 Longer cable lengths are used in aerial, direct-burial or undersea applications.
 The complete long-distance transmission line is formed by splicing or connecting together these
cable sections.
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 5. Explain Optical fiber attenuation as a function of wavelength

 Early fiber links used the 800-to 900-nm range, where there was a local attenuation minimum (the
first window).
 Achievement of lower attenuations results in longer-wavelength second-window (around 1300nm)
and third-window (around 1550 nm) operations.

 The principal characteristic of an optical fiber is its attenuation as a function of wavelength, as

shown in Figure 4.

 Early technology made exclusive use of the 800- to 900-nm wavelength band.
 In this region the fibers exhibited a minimum in the attenuation curve.
 The optical sources and photodetectors operating at these wavelengths were available.
 This region is often referred to as the first window.

Figure 4: Optical fiber attenuation as a function of wavelength.

 By reducing the concentration of hydroxyl ions and metallic ion impurities in the fiber material,
fiber manufacturers were able to fabricate optical waveguides with very low losses in the 1100- to
1600-nm region.

 This spectral bandwidth is usually referred to as the long-wavelength region.

 Two windows are defined here, these being the second window centered around 1300 nm and the
third window centered around 1550 nm.

*****
Basic Optical Laws and Definitions:
6. Discuss about the Basic Optical Laws and Definitions of Optical Communication. (or)
Explain the terms Refractive index, Reflection and refraction, Representation of the critical
angle, total internal reflection.
Illustrate the concept of total internal reflection and polarization components of light with
necessary expressions.(13m) [Dec 2021]

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 Basic Optical Laws and Definitions:
 The basic optics laws and definitions relevant to optical fiber transmission technology include
o Snell's law
o the definition of the refractive index of a material
o the concepts of reflection, refraction and polarization.

Refractive index:

 A fundamental optical parameter of a material is the refractive index (or index of refraction).
 In free space a light wave travels at a speed c = 3X108 m/s.
 The speed of light is related to the frequency v and the wavelength  by c  v .
 When entering a dielectric medium the wave now travels at a speed v, which is less than c.

 Refractive Index (or) Index of Refraction:

The ratio of the speed of light in a vacuum to that in material is the index of refraction ‘n’
of the material and is given by
c
n
v
 Typical values of n are 1.00 for air, 1.33 for water, 1.50 for glass, and 2.42 for diamond.

Reflection and refraction:

 The concepts of reflection and refraction can be interpreted easily.
 Consider the behavior of light rays associated with plane waves traveling in a dielectric material.

Figure 5: Refraction and reflection of a light ray at a material boundary.

 When a light ray meets a boundary separating two different mediums, a part of the ray is reflected
back into the first medium and the remainder is bent (or refracted) as it enters the second
material.
 This is shown in above Figure 5, where n2 < n1.

 Refraction:
o The bending or refraction of the light ray at the interface is a result of the difference in the
speed of light in two materials having different refractive indices.
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  The relationship at the interface is known as Snell's law and is given by
n1 cos1  n2 cos2
where the angles are defined in Figure.

 Angle of incidence: The angle 1 between the incident ray and the normal to the surface is known
as the angle of incidence.

 According to the law of reflection the angle 1 at which the incident ray strikes the interface is
exactly equal to the angle the reflected ray makes with the same interface.

 Plane of incidence: The incident ray, the normal to the interface, and the reflected ray all lie in the
same plane, which is perpendicular to the interface plane between the two materials. This is called
the plane of incidence.

 As the angle of incidence 1 in an optically denser material (higher refractive index) becomes
smaller, the refracted angle 2 approaches zero.
 Beyond this point, no refraction is possible and the light rays become totally internally reflected.
 The conditions required for total internal reflection can be determined by using Snell's law.

Representation of the critical angle and total internal reflection at a glass–air interface

Figure 6: Representation of the critical angle and total internal reflection at a glass–air interface.

 Consider the figure 6, which shows a glass surface in air.

 A light ray gets bent toward the glass surface as it leaves the glass in accordance with Snell's law.
 If the angle of incidence 1 is decreased, a point will eventually be reached where the light ray in
air is parallel to the glass surface. This point is known as the critical angle of incidence c .
 When the incident angle 1 is less than the critical angle, the condition for total internal reflection
is satisfied.
 That is, the light is totally reflected back into the glass with no light escaping from the glass
surface.
(This is an idealized situation. In practice there is always some tunneling of optical energy through
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the interface.)

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  As an example consider the glass-air interface shown in Figure.
 When the light ray in air is parallel to the glass surface then, 2  so that sin 2  1.
90o
 The critical angle in the glass is thus

sin c
n2
n
1
 In addition, when light is totally internally reflected, a phase change  occurs in the reflected
wave.
 This phase change depends on the angle 1   / 2  2 according to the relationships.

N
tan 
n 2 cos2 1 1
2
n sin 1
p
tan  n n 2 cos2 1 1
2 sin 1
 Here N and  are the phase shifts of the wave components normal and parallel to the plane of
p
n1
incidence, respectively, and n  .
n2

Figure 7: Phase shifts occurring from the reflection of wave components normal (  N ) and parallel (  p )
to the plane of incidence.

 These phase shifts are shown in Figure 7 for a glass-air interface (n = 1.5
and   52o ).
c
 The values range from zero immediately at the critical angle to  / 2  when   90o .
c
c
 These basic optical principles will now be used to illustrate how optical power is transmitted along
a fiber.
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Optical Fiber Modes and Configurations
1. Fiber types, 2. Rays and modes, 3. Step-index fiber structure, 4. Ray optics representation, 5. Wave
representation in a Dielectric slab waveguide
10. Explain in detail about the various types of the fibers.

Fiber types
 An optical fiber is a dielectric waveguide that operates at optical frequencies.
 It confines the electromagnetic energy in the form of light and guides the light in a direction
parallel to its axis.
 The structures define the transmission properties of the optical waveguide.
 The structure decides the information-carrying capacity of the fiber.

 Modes of the waveguide:

o The propagation of light along a waveguide can be described in terms of a set of guided
electromagnetic waves called the modes of the waveguide.
 These guided modes are referred to as the bound or trapped modes of the waveguide.

 Each guided mode is a pattern of electric and magnetic field lines that is repeated along the fiber
at intervals equal to the wavelength.
 Only a certain discrete number of modes are capable of propagating along the guide.

Figure 14: Schematic of a single-fiber structure.

A circular solid core of refractive index nl is surrounded by a cladding having a refractive index n2<n1.
An elastic plastic buffer encapsulates the fiber.
Core & Cladding
 The most widely accepted structure is the single solid dielectric cylinder of radius a and index of
refraction n1 shown in Figure 14.
 This cylinder is known as the core of the fiber.
 The core is surrounded by a solid dielectric cladding having a refractive index n2.
 n2 is less than n1.

 The cladding is not necessary for light to propagate along the core of the fiber, it serves several
purposes.
 The cladding reduces scattering loss (resulting from dielectric discontinuities at the core
surface)
 It adds mechanical strength to the fiber
 It protects the core from absorbing surface contaminants.
Core and cladding materials:
 In low- and medium-loss fibers the core material is generally glass and is surrounded by either a
glass or a plastic cladding.
 Higher-loss plastic-core fibers with plastic claddings are also widely in use.
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 In addition, most fibers are encapsulated in an elastic, abrasion-resistant plastic material.
 This material adds strength to the fiber and mechanically isolates or buffers the fibers from small
geometrical irregularities, distortions, or roughnesses of adjacent surfaces.
 These perturbations could otherwise cause scattering losses induced by random microscopic bends.

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1. Draw the structures of step index and graded index fibers with its dimensions. [Dec 2007,
Dec 2008, Dec 2012] (or)
Discuss on the types of Fiber. Explain the features of multimode and single mode step index
fiber and compare them. [Dec 2014] (or)
Describe step index and graded index cable. [May 2015] (or)
Draw and explain the refractive index profile and ray transmission in multimode step index
and single mode step index fibers. (7m) [May 2019]
Describe with the aid of simple ray diagram. [Nov 2019]
(i) The multimode step index fiber. (5m)
(ii) The single mode step index fiber. (5m)
(iii)Compare the advantages and disadvantages of these two types of fiber for their use
as optical channel. (3)
Step-index and Graded-index fibers:
 Variations in the material composition of the core give rise to the two commonly used fiber types
shown in Figure.
 Step-index fiber:
 The core refractive index is uniform throughout the fiber, and
 The refractive index undergoes an abrupt change (or step) at the cladding boundary.
 Graded-index fiber:
 The core refractive index varies as a function of the radial distance, from the center of the
fiber.
Single mode and Multimode fibers:
 Both the step- and the graded-index fibers can be further divided into
 Single-mode, and
 Multimode classes.

Single-mode fibers:
 Single-mode fiber maintains only one mode of propagation.
 A few typical sizes of single-mode fibers are given in above Figure.
 Single-mode fibers must generally be excited with laser diodes.
 Advantage:
 Higher bandwidths are possible in single-mode fibers
 So, intermodal dispersion effects are not present.

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 Figure 15: Comparison of single-mode and multimode step-index and graded-index optical fibers.
Multi-mode fibers:
 Multimode fibers contain many hundreds of modes.
 A few typical sizes of multi-mode fibers are given in above Figure.
 Multimode fibers offer several advantages compared to single-mode fibers.
 The larger core radii of multimode fibers eases the launch of optical power into the fiber.
 It facilitates the connecting together of similar fibers.
 Light can be launched into a multimode fiber using a light• emitting-diode (LED) source.
 LEDs have less optical output power than laser diodes, but
 they are easier to make and less expensive
 they require less complex circuitry, and
 they have longer lifetimes than- laser diodes
thus making them more desirable in many applications.
 A disadvantage of multimode fibers:
 They suffer from intermodal dispersion.
 When an optical pulse is launched into a fiber, the optical power in the pulse is distributed over
all (or most) of the modes of the fiber.
 Each of the modes that can propagate in a multimode fiber travels at a slightly different
velocity.
 This means that the modes in a given optical pulse arrive at the fiber end at slightly different
times, thus causing the pulse to spread out in time as it travels along the fiber.
 This effect, which is known as intermodal dispersion.
 It can be reduced by using a graded-index profile in the fiber core i.e., Multimode graded index
fibers.
 This allows graded-index fibers to have much larger band•widths (data rate transmission
capabilities) than step-index fibers.

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Comparison of Step Index and Graded Index fibers
2. Compare step index and Graded index fibers. [Dec 2016]

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3. Explain in detail about rays and modes in optical fiber communication. (or)
Discuss whether TEM waves exist in an optical fiber. If not what type of mode will propagate
in a practical optical fiber. [Nov 2017]

Rays and Modes

 The electromagnetic light field that is guided along an optical fiber can be represented by a
superposition of bound or trapped modes.
 Each guided mode consists of a set of simple electromagnetic field configurations, which form a
standing-wave pattern in the transverse direction (that is, transverse to the waveguide axis).

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Parameters describing the modes:
 The factor  is the z component of the wave propagation constant k  2 / and is the main
parameter of interest in describing fiber modes. 
 For guided modes  can only assume certain discrete values
 The values of which  are determined as, the mode field must satisfy the
 Maxwell's equations, and
 electric and magnetic field boundary conditions at the core-cladding interface.
Geometrical optics (or) Ray-tracing approach:
 To study the propagation characteristics of light in an optical fiber theoretically.
 This method provides a good approximation to the light acceptance and guiding properties of
optical fibers.
 It is used when the ratio of the fiber radius to the wavelength is large.
 This is known as the small-wavelength limit.

 The ray approach is strictly valid only in the zero-wavelength limit.

 It is accurate and extremely valuable for nonzero wavelengths, when the number of guided modes
is large (i.e., for multimode fibers).
 The advantage of the ray approach
 compared to the exact electromagnetic wave (modal) analysis, it gives a more direct
physical interpretation of the light propagation characteristics in an optical fiber.
Relationship between plane wave and light ray:
 Since the concept of a light ray is very different from that of a mode, let us see qualitatively what
the relationship is between them.
 A guided mode traveling in the z direction (along the fiber axis) can be decomposed into a family
of superimposed plane waves.
 The family of plane waves collectively form a standing-wave pattern in the direction transverse to
the fiber axis.
 Ray congruence: Any plane wave can be associated with a light ray that is perpendicular to the
phase front of the wave, the family of plane waves corresponding to a particular mode forms a set
of rays called a ray congruence.
 Each ray of this particular set travels in the fiber at the same angle relative to the fiber axis.
Mode analysis:
 The analysis of single-mode or few-mode fibers is by using electromagnetic theory.
 Problems involving coherence or interference phenomena were solved with an electromagnetic
approach.
 A modal analysis is necessary when a details of the field distribution of individual modes is
required.
 This arises, when analyzing
 the excitation of an individual mode, or
 when analyzing the coupling of power between modes at waveguide imperfection.

 Another difference between the ray optics approach and the modal analysis occurs when an optical
fiber is uniformly bent with a constant radius of curvature.

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  Wave optics correctly predicts all the modes of the curved fiber experiences some radiation loss.
 Ray optics, incorrectly predicts that some ray congruences can undergo total internal reflection at
the curve and, consequently, can remain guided without loss.

Step-index fiber structure

 Discussion of light propagation in an optical waveguide by considering the step-index fiber.

 In practical step-index fibers the core of radius a has a refractive index n1 = 1.48.
 This is surrounded by a cladding of slightly lower index n2, where
n2  n1 (1 )
where,
 - Core-cladding index difference

 Values of n2 are chosen such that  is nominally 0.01.

 Typical values range from 1 to 3 percent for multimode fibers and from 0.2 to 1.0 percent for
single-mode fibers.
 Since the core, refractive index is larger than the cladding index, electromagnetic energy at optical
frequencies will propagate along the fiber waveguide through internal reflection at the core-
cladding interface.
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4. Explain in detail about ray optics representation.(or)
Explain the types of rays propagate in the fiber. (or)
Explain in detail about the meridional and skew
rays.
Suppose that an incoming ray from a light source is not within the acceptance angle limits.
What will happen to the light to be transmitted ? Suggest a proper solution so that the whole
of information to be transmitted is properly sent through the fiber.[Nov 2021]
Ray optics representation

 The propagation mechanism in an ideal multimode step-index optical wave•guide is most easily
seen by a simple ray (geometrical) optics representation.
 For simplicity, in this analysis, consider only a particular ray belonging to a ray congruence which
represents a fiber mode.
 The two types of rays that can propagate in a fiber are
 meridional rays, and
 skew rays.

Meridional rays:
 Meridional rays are confined to the meridian planes of the fiber.
 Meridian planes contain the axis of symmetry of the fiber (the core axis).
 The meridional ray lies in a single plane, so its path is easy to track, as it travels along the fiber.
 Meridional rays can be divided into two general classes:

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  bound rays that are trapped in the core and propagate along the fiber axis according to the
laws of geometrical optics, and
 unbound rays that are refracted out of the fiber core.

Figure: Ray optics representation of skew rays traveling in a step-index optical fiber core.

Skew rays:
 Skew rays are not confined to a single plane.
 Skew rays tend to follow a helical type path, along the fiber as shown in Figure.
 Skew rays do not lie in a single plane, these rays are more difficult to track, as they travel along the
fiber.

 Skew rays comprise a major portion of the total number of guided rays. But, their analysis is not
necessary to obtain a general picture of rays propagating in a fiber.
 However, a detailed inclusion of skew rays will change such expressions as
 the light acceptance ability of the fiber, and
 power losses of light traveling along a waveguide.

 A greater power loss arises when skew rays are included in the analyses.
 These leaky rays are only partially confined to the core of the circular optical fiber and attenuate as
the light travels along the optical waveguide.

Meridional ray analysis:

 The meridional ray is shown in Figure for a step-index fiber.

 The lightray enters the fiber core from a medium of refractive index n at an angle 0 with respect
to the fiber axis and strikes the core-cladding interface at a normal angle  .
 If it strikes this interface at an angle that it is totally internally reflected, the meridional ray follows
a zigzag path along the fiber core, passing through the axis of the guide after each reflection.
21
 Figure: Meridional ray optics representation of the
propagation mechanism in an ideal step-index
optical waveguide.

 From Snell's law the minimum angle min that supports total internal reflection for the meridional
ray is given by
sin  n (1)
min  n2
1

 Rays striking the core-cladding interface at angles less than min will refract out of the core and be
lost in the cladding.
 The condition of Eq. (1) can be related to the maximum entrance angle 0,max through the
relationship
n sin  1/2n sin   (n2  n2 (2)
)
0,max 1 c 1 2

where c
is the critical angle.
 Thus those rays having entrance angles 0 less than 
0,max will be totally internally reflected at the
core-cladding interface.
 Equation (2) also defines the numerical aperture NA of a step-index fiber for meridional rays,
NA  n sin  (n2  n2 )1/2  n
 2
0,max 1 2 1

 The approximation on the right-hand side is valid for the typical case where  is much less than 1.

 Numerical aperture is related to the maximum acceptance angle, it is commonly used to describe
 the light acceptance or gathering capability of a fiber, and
 to calculate source-to-fiber optical power coupling efficiencies.
 The numerical aperture is a dimensionless quantity which is less than unity, with values normally
ranging from 0.14 to 0.50.

Table: Preferred sizes of optical fibers and their corresponding numerical apertures are as follows:

22
**********

23
 5. Explain in detail about the Wave representation in a Dielectric slab waveguide with proper
diagrams
Wave representation in a Dielectric slab waveguide
 The ray theory appears to allow rays at any angle 1 less than the critical angle c to propagate
along the fiber.
 The only rays at certain discrete angles less than or equal to c are capable of propagating along the
fiber.

Figure: Lightwave propagating along a fiber waveguide.

 Phase changes occur both as the wave travels through the fiber medium and at the reflection points.
 As the wave travels it undergoes a phase change  given by
n 2s
  k s  n ks  1
1 1

where
kl = the propagation constant in the medium of refractive index nl
k = kl/nl is the free-space propagation constant
s = the distance traveled along the ray by the wave
 The phase of the wave changes not only as the wave travels but also upon reflection from a dielectric
interface.
 The phase of the twice reflected wave must be the same as that of the incident wave.
 That is, the wave must interfere constructively with itself.
 If this phase condition is not satisfied, the wave will interfere destructively with itself and just die
out.
 Thus the total phase shift that results when the wave traverses the guide twice (from points A to B to
C) and gets reflected twice (at points A and B) must be equal to an integer multiple of 2 rad.
 The phase change that occurs over the distance ABC be AC  n1k(2d / sin1) and the phase changes
upon reflection each by (assuming for simplicity that the wave is polarized normal to the plane of
incidence)

1  (n2 cos2  1 1)1/ 2

2 where n = n1/n2.
arctan n sin 1

 Then the following condition must be satisfied:

2n1kd
sin1  21  2M
where M is an integer that determines the allowed ray angles for waveguiding.
24
***********

25
Mode analysis for optical propagation through fibers
Modes in planar wave guide

26
27
Modes in cylindrical optical fiber

28
Cladding modes

29
30
31
32
33
Transverse electric and transverse magnetic modes

34
35
36
37
38
 **************

Mode theory of Circular Wave guides: Overview of Modes, Key Modal concepts, Linearly Polarized
Modes

 To understand the optical power propagation mechanism in a fiber it is necessary to solve Maxwell’s
equations subject to the cylindrical boundary conditions at the interface between the core and the
cladding of the fiber.

 When solving the Maxwell’s equations for hollow metallic waveguides, only transverse electric (TE)
modes and transverse magnetic (TM) modes are found.

 In the optical fibers, the core-cladding boundary conditions lead to a coupling between the electric
and magnetic field components.

 This give rise to hybrid modes, which makes optical waveguide analysis more complex than metallic
waveguide analysis.

 The hybrid modes are designated a HE or EH modes, depending on whether the transverse electric
field (the E field) or transverse magnetic field (the H field) is larger for that mode.

 The two lowest order modes are designated by HE 11 and TE01, where the subscripts refer to possible
modes of propagation of the optical field.

*****

39
Overview of modes:

6. Give an overview of the different guided radiated and leaky modes of optical fibers.
[May 2011]

Order of mode:
 The order of a mode is equal to the number of field zeros across the guide.
 Figure shows the appearance of modal fields in the planar dielectric slab waveguide.
 Consider this waveguide is composed of a dielectric slab of refractive index n1<n2, which is called
cladding.
 The electric fields are not completely confined within the core i.e., they do not go to zero at core-
cladding interface and extends into the cladding.

 Field vary harmonically in the guiding region of refractive index n1 and decay exponentially outside
the region.
 In the low-order modes the fields are tightly concentrated near the center of the slab (or the axis of
an optical fiber), with little penetration into the cladding region.
 In the higher-order modes the fields are distributed more towards the edges of the guide and
penetrate further into the cladding region.

Figure: Electric field distributions for several of the lower-order modes in a symmetrical-slab wave-
guide

Modes
 The propagation of light along a wave guide can be described in terms of guided electromagnetic
waves called mode of propagation.
 Each mode is a pattern of electric and magnetic field distribution that is repeated along the fiber at
regular intervals
 Every mode is represented by a unique solution of the Maxwell’s equation inside the core
 The stable Field distribution along the x-axis with only a periodic z-dependence is known as mode

Guided or Trapped modes

 Modes travelling inside fiber along its axis.
 They are finite solutions of Maxwell equation ( 6 hybrid E and H field)

40
 Leaky modes
 In the leaky modes the fields are confined partially in the fiber core and attenuated as they propagate
along the fiber length due to radiation and tunnel effect

Tunnel effect
 The leaky modes are continuously radiating their power out of the core as they propagate along the
fiber.
 This power radiation out of the waveguide results from a quantum mechanical phenomenon known
as the tunnel effect.
 Therefore in order to the mode remain guided, the propagation factor  must satisfy the condition
n 2 k    n 1k (1)
where,
n1 - Refractive index of fiber core
n2 - Refractive index of fiber cladding
2
k - Propagation constant for light in a vacuum 

 The boundary between the truly guided modes and leaky modes is defined by the cutoff
condition   n2k .
 When  becomes smaller than n2 (i.e., n2k   ) power leaks out of the core into the cladding
region. k
 Leaky modes can carry significant amounts of optical in a short fibers.

Summary of key modal concepts:

 An important parameter connected with the cutoff condition is the V-number that determines how
many modes a fiber can support.
 The normalized frequency may be expressed in terms of the numerical aperture (NA) and the
relative index difference  , respectively, as,
2 2a 2
V  a (NA)  (n  n2 )1/ (2a)
2

1 2
 
(or)
2
V a n (2)1/ 2 (2b)
1

 The normalized frequency is a dimensionless parameter and hence is also sometimes simply called
the V-number or value of the fiber.
 The modes are cut-off when   n2k . This occurs whenV  2.405 .
 The V-number can also be used to express the number of modes M in a multimode fiber when V is
large.
 For this case, an estimate of the total number
2
modes supported in a fiber is,
1  2a 
M  
2 
2  2  
41
n1  n2 
3()

42
  Substitute equation (2a) in equation (3), 2we get
V2
M   (4)
 2 
 The relation between cladding power and total optical power in the fiber is given by
 Pclad  4

 
 P  3 M
where, P is the total optical power in the fiber.
 M is proportional to V2, the power flow in the cladding decreases as V increases.

Figure shows examples of such rays form =1, 2, 3, together with the electric field distributions in the x direction.
It may be observed that m denotes the number of zeros in this transverse field pattern.
In this way m signifies the order of the mode and is known as the mode number.

Figure. Physical model showing the ray propagation and the corresponding transverse electric (TE) field patterns of

**********

43
Electromagnetic mode theory for optical propagation
Maxwell’s Equation:

7. Starting from the Maxwell’s equation derive the expression for wave equation of an
electromagnetic wave propagation through optical fiber [Dec 2012, May
2014] With diagram, explain electromagnetic mode theory of optical propagation.
(16m) [May 2014]

Electromagnetic waves
 The electromagnetic wave theory is considered, to get an improved model for the propagation of
light in an optical fiber.
 The origin for the study of electromagnetic wave propagation is provided by Maxwell’s equations.
 For a medium with zero conductivity these vector relationships may be written in terms of the
electric field E, magnetic field H, electric flux density D and magnetic flux density B as the curl
equations:

(1)

(2)

and the divergence conditions:

(3)

(4)
where ∇ is a vector operator.

The four field vectors are related by the relations:

(5)

where εis the dielectric permittivity and μ is the magnetic permeability of the medium.
Substituting for D and B and taking the curl of Eqs (1) and (2) gives:

(6)

(7)

Then using the divergence conditions of Eqs (3) and (4) with the vector identity:

44
we obtain the non-dispersive wave equations:

(8)

and:

(9)

where ∇2 is the Laplacian operator. For rectangular Cartesian and cylindrical polar coordinates the above
wave equations hold for each component of the field vector, every component satisfying the scalar wave
equation:

(10)

where ψ may represent a component of the E or H field and υp is the phase velocity (velocity of propagation
of a point of constant phase in the wave) in the dielectric medium.
It follows that:

(11)

where μr and εr are the relative permeability and permittivity for the dielectric medium and μ0 and ε0 are the
permeability and permittivity of free space.

The velocity of light in free-space c is therefore:

(12)

If planar waveguides, described by rectangular Cartesian coordinates (x, y, z), or circular fibers, described
by cylindrical polar coordinates (r,  , z), are considered, then the Laplacian operator takes the form:

(13)

Or:

(14)

respectively.
The basic solution of the wave equation is a sinusoidal wave, the most important form of which is a uniform
plane wave given by:

(15) 39
 Where,

ω is the angular frequency of the field

t is the time
k is the propagation vector (it gives the direction of propagation and the rate of change of phase with
distance)
The components of r specify the coordinate point at which the field is observed.
When
λ - the optical wavelength in a vacuum
k - the magnitude of the propagation vector or the vacuum phase propagation constant k
(where k = |k|) is given by:

(16)

Note: k is also referred to as the free space wave number.

************

Linearly Polarized Modes

8. Derive the expression for the linearly polarized modes in optical fiber and obtain equation
for V number. [Dec 2012, Dec 2007, May 2011, Dec 2008]

Linearly polarized modes

 In a step-index fiber the difference between the indices of the core and cladding is very small that is
  1. This is the basis of the weakly guiding fiber approximation.

 In this approximation electromagnetic field patterns and propagation constants are same for the mode
pairs HE and EHv1,m are very similar.
v1,
m

 The propagation constants of the guided modes  lie in the range

n2 k   k2    k1  n1k (1)

 When   1 then k 2  k 2   2 . Using this approximations, in the eigen value equation for  .
1 2
2
 v   1 1 
(J  K )(k 2J  k 2K )       
(2)
v v 1 2 v
v  a  u 2
w2 
It becomes
v  1 1
(J  k )   
(3)
v v    

2 2 
a u w
40
   
where, u and w which are the eigen values in the core and cladding respectively.

41
 U  a(n2K 2   2)1/ 2 (4)
1
W  a(  n K )
2 2
2
2 1/
(5)
2

 The normalized V 2  (u2  w2 )  K a (n2 )1/ (6)

frequency 2
2
 For positive and negative signs two sets of equations are possible from equation (3)
 The positive sign gives
Jv 1(ua) Kv 1(wa)
  (7)
0
uJv (ua) wKv (wa)
 The solution of this equation gives a set of modes called the EH modes.

 Similarly for the negative sign, equation (3), can be written as

Jv1(ua) Kv1(wa)
 0 (8)
uJv (ua) wKv (wa)
 The solution of this equation yield set of modes called HE modes.
 The two equations (7) and (8) can be represented by a common equation using the new parameter called
‘j’
 1 for TE and TM modes

j v1 for EH modes (9)

 v 1 for HE modes
 The two equations (7) and (8) are deduced to a common equation which is given as
uJ j 1 (ua) wK j 1
(wa)  (10)
J j (ua) K j (wa)
 Equation (9) and (10) show that within the weakly guiding approximation all modes characterized by a
common set of j and m satisfy the same characteristic equation. This means that these modes are
degenerate.

Degenerate modes:
  in weakly guiding fibers is very small, then HE-EH mode pairs occur which have almost identical
propagation constants, such modes are said to be degenerate.
 HEv1,m mode is degenerate with an EHv1,m mode.
 The degenerate modes be called linearly polarized (LP) modes, and be designated LPjm modes.
 LPjm mode subscripts j and m are related to the electric field intensity profile for a particular LP mode.
 LPjm modes regardless of their TM, TE, EH and HE field configuration.
 The linearly polarized modes are derived from the basic transverse and hybrid modes.
(i)
Each LP0m mode is derived from HE1m mode.
an

42
 (ii)
Each LP1m mode is derived from a TE0m ,TM0m and HE2m modes.
(iii)
Each LPvm mode ( v  2 )is from HEv1,m and an EHv1,m mode.
an
Lower order LP mode:
 The mode having lowest cut-off frequency is known as lower order LP mode.

43
 Table: Composition of the lower-order linearly polarized modes
LP-mode Traditional mode designation and number of modes Number of
Designation degenerate modes
LP01 HE11  2 2
LP11 TE01,TM01, HE21  2 4
LP21 EH11  2 , HE31  2 4
LP02 HE12  2 2
LP31 EH 21  2 , HE41  2 4
LP12 TE02,TM02, HE22  2 4
LP41 EH31  2 , HE51  2 4
LP22 EH 21  2 , HE32  2 4
LP03 HE13  2 2
LP51 EH 41  2 , HE61  2 4

Figure: The four possible transverse electric field and magnetic field directions and the corresponding
intensity distributions for the LP11 mode
Advantages:
 Linearly polarized mode concept is very useful in understanding and analyzing the transmission
characteristics of optical fibers.
 Equalization of a mode is quick and easy four discrete mode patterns can be obtained from a single
linearly polarized mode by taking two possible directions of polarization.
 Number of exact modes can be converted into a single linearly polarized mode.
Demerits:
 Linearly polarized mode concept is valid only for weakly guiding approximation.

******
44
Derivation of V number (Normalized frequency) from LP modes

9. Derive the expression for the linearly polarized modes in optical fibers and obtain the
equation for V – number (or) normalized frequency (or) V- Value of the fiber. (08m) [Nov
2012] (or)
What are EH and HE hybrid modes? Differentiate. (06m) [May 2012]
Explain in detail linearly polarized modes in optical fibers and their relationship to V
number. (7m) [May 2019]

1. Modes
 Let consider the resulting modal fields.
 In common with the planar guide, TE (where Ez=0) and TM (where Hz=0) modes are obtained within
the dielectric cylinder.
 The cylindrical waveguide is bounded in two dimensions.

 The cylindrical waveguide have TElm and TMlm modes (l and m - to specify the modes).
 These modes correspond to meridional rays traveling within the fiber.

 Hybrid modes, Ez and Hz are nonzero, also occur within the cylindrical waveguide.
 These modes, result from skew ray propagation within the fiber.
 These are designated HElm and EHlm depending on the components of H or E’s major contribution to
the transverse (to the fiber axis) field.

 So, an exact description of the modal fields in a step index fiber is complicated.

 The approximate solutions for the full set of HE, EH, TE and TM modes may be given by two
linearly polarized components.
 The relationship between the traditional HE, EH, TE and TM mode designations and the LPlm
mode designations is shown in Table.
 The mode subscripts ‘l’ and ‘m’ are related to the electric field intensity profile for a particular LP
mode (Figure 15(d)).

Table: Correspondence between the lower orders in linearly polarized modes

and the traditional exact modes from which they are formed

45
 Figure 15 The electric field configurations
for the three lowest LP modes illustrated in
terms of their constituent exact modes:
(a) LP mode designations;
(b) exact mode designations;
(c) electric field distribution of the exact
modes;
(d) intensity distribution of EX for the exact
modes indicating the electric field intensity
profile for the corresponding LP modes

 The subscript l in the LP notation corresponds to HE and EH modes with labels l+1 and l−1
respectively.

 Figure 15: The electric field intensity profiles for the lowest three LP modes, along with the electric
field distribution of their exact modes, are shown.
 Observation from Figure 15:
 The field configurations (i.e., intensity distribution) of the exact modes that the field
strength in the transverse direction (Ex or Ey) is identical for the modes which belong to the
same LP mode. So it is called as ‘linearly polarized’.
 The scalar wave equation can be written in the form:

(1)
(Using Eq. (31) for the cylindrical homogeneous core waveguide under the weak guidance
conditions)
Where,
ψ - the field (E or H)
n1 - the refractive index of the fiber core
k - the propagation constant for light in a vacuum
r,  - cylindrical coordinates.

46
 Propagation constant:
The propagation constants of the guided modes β lie in the range:

(2)
where n2 is the refractive index of the fiber cladding.

 Solutions of the wave equation

(3)
Where, ψ - the dominant transverse electric field component.
 The periodic dependence on  following cos l or sin l gives a mode of radial order
l. Hence the fiber supports a finite number of guided modes of the form of Eq. (3).

 Substituting the solutions given by Eq. (3) into Eq. (1) results in a differential equation of the form:

(4)
is a Bessel differential equation.
Bessel differential equation:
 For a step index fiber with a constant refractive index core, Eq. (4) is a Bessel differential equation
 The solutions of Eq. (4) are cylinder functions.
 In the core region the solutions are Bessel functions denoted by Jl.
 A graph of these gradually damped oscillatory functions (with respect to r) is shown in Figure 16(a).
 It may be noted that the field is finite at r = 0 and may be represented by the zero-order Bessel
function J0.
 But, the field vanishes as r   .
 The solutions in the cladding are therefore modified Bessel functions denoted by Kl.
 These modified functions decay exponentially with respect to r, as illustrated in Figure 16(b).
 Therefore, the electric field will be given by:

(5)
Where,
G - the amplitude coefficient
R = r/a is the normalized radial coordinate
when a is the radius of the fiber core;
U and W - the eigen values in the core and cladding respectively,
defined as:

(6)

(7)
47
 * U is also referred to as the radial phase parameter or the radial propagation constant, whereas W is
known as the cladding decay parameter.

Figure 16
(a)
Variation of the Bessel function Jl(r) for l = 0, 1,
2, 3 (first four orders), plotted against r.
(b)
Graph of the modified Bessel function Kl(r)
against r for l = 0, 1

 The sum of the squares of U and W defines a very useful quantity, referred as the normalized
frequency* V where:

(8)
 The normalized frequency may be expressed in terms of the numerical aperture NA and the
relative refractive index difference Δ, respectively, as:

(9)

(10)
 The normalized frequency is a dimensionless parameter and hence is also sometimes simply called
the V number or value of the fiber.
**********
Fiber materials
Most of the fibers are made up of glass consisting of either Silica (SiO2) or .Silicate. High- loss glass
fibers are used for short-transmission distances and low-loss glass fibers are used for long distance
applications. Plastic fibers are less used because of their higher attenuation than glass fibers. Glass Fibers.
 The glass fibers are made from oxides.
 The most common oxide is silica whose refractive index is 1.458 at 850 nm.
 To get different index fibers, the dopants such as GeO2, P2O5 are added to silica.
 GeO2 and P2O3 increase the refractive index whereas fluorine or B203 decreases the refractive
index.

48
Few fiber compositions are given below as follows,
(i) GeO2 – SiO2 Core: SiO2 Cladding
(ii) (ii) P2Q5 – SiO2, Core; SiO2 Cladding

The principle raw material for silica is sand. The glass composed of pure silica is referred to as silica
glass, nitrous silica or fused silica.
Some desirable properties of silica are,
(i) Resistance to deformation at temperature as high as 1000°C.
(ii) High resistance to breakage from thermal shock.
(iii) Good chemical durability.
(iv) High transparency in both the visible and infrared regions.

Basic Requirements and Considerations in Fiber Fabrication

(i) Optical fibers should have maximum reproducibility.
(ii) Fibers should be fabricated with good stable transmission characteristics i.e., the fiber
should have invariable transmission characteristics in long lengths.
(iii) Different size, refractive index and refractive index profile, operating wavelengths
material. Fiber must be available to meet different system applications.
(iv) The fibers must be flexible to convert into practical cables without any degradation of their
characteristics.

10. Explain about any two fiber fabrication techniques. [Nov 2020]

Fiber Fabrication Techniques:

 High quality glass fibers are generally fabricated by pulling long strands a preform using a fiber-
drawing tower.
 The fiber drawing machine is an apparatus which is typically several meters high.
 Along its axis, the preform contains a region with increased refractive index, which forms the fiber
core after drawing of fiber from the preform.
 The preform is heated close to the melting point using a drawing furnace fixed at the top of the
drawing tower.
 A thin fiber is generally pulled out of the bottom of the preform.
 The fiber from a single preform in this process can have lengths of several kilometers.
 During the pulling process, the fiber diameter is held constant by automatically adjusting the
pulling speed of the take-up drum fixed at the bottom of the lower.
 The speed of the take-up drum determines how fast the fibers are drawn.
 This in turn also determines the thickness of the fiber produced in the process.
 In order to maintain uniform thickness, it is essential that the motor or the take-up drum must
rotate at a pre-decided uniform speed.
 An optical fiber thickness monitor is used in a feedback loop to monitor the speed of the drum.
 The furnace temperature is also maintained with the help of an automatic feedback system.
 A typical fiber drawing tower is shown in Fig.
49
 Fig. Schematic of a fiber drawing tower

 Before the fiber is wound up, it usually receives a primary buffer polymer coating usually followed
by a secondary coating for mechanical and chemical protection of the fiber.
 Ultraviolet-based coaling curing system usually follows the coating applicators as indicated in the
figure.
 Multiple coatings help in the suppression of microbends.
 Typical coating materials include acrylate, silicone and polyimide.
 The fiber is finally wound up in the take-up drum whose speed is precisely controlled by the
feedback mechanism used for monitoring the thickness of the bare fiber.
 Additional PVC or similar protective jackets are usually provided by extrusion after the drawing
process.

Fabrication of fiber Preforms

 Optical fiber preforms are generally fabricated with a process called chemical vapor deposition or
vapor phase oxidation technique.
 The basic method and many variations of this method were extensively used for making silica•
based optical fibers since 1970s.
 Later on, a more sophisticated technique based on Plasma deposition was developed by the
scientists at Philips Co.
 ln general, a mixture of oxygen, metal halides such as silicon tetrachloride (SiCI4), germanium
tetrachloride (GeCI4) are made to react in order to produce white powder of Si02 containing Ge02.
 The latter oxide in trace amount is used to vary the refractive index depending on the requirement.
 The white dust powder is subsequently collected on a substrate in the form of soot which looks
opaque.

50
  The soot is subsequently transformed into a homogeneous glass by healing without melting. This
process is known as sintering.
 The following chemical reactions take place during Oxidation or metal halides:

 Other forms of impurity such as P205 can be added in the formation of soot during the reaction by
incorporating POCl3 among the reactants.
 For making active optical fibers, rare-earth dopants are also passed with the reacting gases.
 Four basic methods used for making optical fibers are
o Outside vapor phase oxidation (OVPO) or outside vapor deposition (OVD)
o Modified chemical vapor deposition (MCVD),
o Vapor axial deposition (VAD) and
o plasma• activated chemical vapor deposition (PCVD).

Outside Vapor Deposition (OVD)

 The breakthrough technique involving vapor deposition of silica for making high quality optical
fiber preforms was proposed and patented by Keck and Schultz.
 This invention paved a new avenue for making optical fibers in place of using traditional glass
making approach involving molten glass.

 In this process, the silica soot is deposited on the surface of a rotating target rod (e.g., a graphite or
ceramic mandrel) from a burner moving along the target rod.
 The method is illustrated in Fig. 2.23.
 The material precursors such as SiCl4, GeCl4, etc. along with a fuel gas such as hydrogen or
methane is supplied to the burner which is moved back and forth along the rotating rod so as to
deposit soot layer by layer on the target rod.
 The carrier gas along with the chemical vapor is supplied through a standard "bubbler" delivery
system shown in Fig. 2.24.
 The bubbler is filled with mass flow controller (MFC) to monitor the flow of the carrier gas.
 This carrier gas is made to bubble through the liquid in the container for vaporizing some of the
chemicals.
 The mixture of the carrier gas and the desired chemical vapors is then allowed to flow 10 the
deposition burner as shown in the figure.
 The soot adheres to the target rod to form porous glass preform.
 The supply of constituent metal halides is controlled during the deposition process so as to create a
pre-decided thickness of the preform with the desired refractive index difference in different
layers.
 Both step-index (SI) and graded-Index (GI) silica fibers can be fabricated by this method.

51
  For making GI fibers, the supply of dopant metal halide is made to vary during the growth of shoot
layers.
 OVD technique was developed by Corning Glass Works for making optical fibers with loss less
than 20 dB/km.

Vapor Phase Axial Deposition (VAD)

 The OVD process is suitable for producing good quality fiber preform.
 However, this method is not suitable for continuous production of fiber for large scale application.

52
  Moreover, as the process involves oxidation in outside atmosphere there Is a possibility of
contamination.
 The basic vapor phase deposition method was suitably modified by Izawa et. al for continuous
production of low-loss fiber In a controlled environment.

 This process is known as vapor axial deposition (VAD) technique.

 This process is very similar to OVD process except for the fact that VAD is done in a closed
environment and it uses a modified geometry, where the deposition occurs at the end of the target
rod (Sudo et 01, 1978).
 The rod is continuously pulled away from the burner, and very long preforms can be drawn in the
process.
 It is most suitable for production of preform on large scales.
 At the bottom of the VAD chamber (Fig. 2.25) flame hydrolysis (same process as used in OVD)
torches produce porous silica soot (including appropriate dopants) which are deposited across the
base of a silica seed rod.
 A porous preform is grown in the axial direction by rotating the seed rod and pulling it upward by
a precision mechanism.
 Thee rotation of the seed rod is needed for cylindrical symmetry of the porous preform.
 As the porous preform is drawn further upwards, it crosses a localized heating zone where the
porous preform gets sintered into a clear glass preform.
 Very long length fiber preforms can be manufactured by this technique.
 The solid preforms can be cut into smaller pieces and loaded in a fiber drawing tower for drawing
fibers.

Modified Chemical Vapor Deposition (MCVD)

 Modified Chemical Vapor Deposition (MCVD) was developed by Bell laboratories primarily for
making high quality step- and graded-index silica fiber.
 Unlike OVD the glass particles are created by burning metal halides in oxygen inside a silica tube.

53
  The technique is illustrated schematically in Fig. 2.26.
 The soot is collected on the inner wall of the rotating silica tube.
 The rotation of the tube is necessary for cylindrical symmetry in the deposition of the soot.
 The opaque soot collected inside the tube is sintered to clear glass by using an oxyhydrogen torch
which moves back and forth along the length of the silica tube.
 After completion of deposition of the desired thickness of soot, the flow of the reactant gases is
stopped.
 The silica tube with the freshly deposited glass on the inner wall is then heated to a high
temperature so that the tube collapses to form a solid preform.
 The preform is finally loaded in a fiber drawing tower to draw fibers.
 The vapor deposited glass on the inner wall of the lube provides the core and the cladding consists
of the material used in the original silica tube.
 One of the major disadvantages of this technique is that OIr ions get into the fiber core because of
tile use of oxyhydrogen burner for sintering.

Plasma Chemical Vapor Deposition (PCVD)

 Plasma chemical vapor deposition (PCVD) is similar to MCVD deposition inside a silica tube
discussed in the previous section.
 The method uses a non-Isothermal low pressure plasma to initiate gas phase reaction for deposition
of doped and undoped silica without involving sintering process separately.
 The method was invented and brought to production by a group of scientists at Philips Research
lab (1986).
 In this case, the reactants containing metal halides and oxygen are passed through a silica rube.
 Unlike MCVD technique, the reaction is initiated in PCVD system by a non-isothermal microwave
plasma operating at low pressure.
 Microwaves are used in place of burner for heating the deposition region (Fig. 2.27).
 The silica tube is preheated at temperatures in the range of 1000-12000C in order to reduce
mechanical stress during the growth of glass film inside the tube.
 A moving microwave resonator operating at 2.45 GHz generates plasma inside the tube and
activates the chemical reaction.
 Following the reaction dear glass material is directly deposited on the inner wall of the preheated
tube without formation of any soot.
 As a result, no separate sintering is required in this case.

54
  After deposition of the desired thickness of glass on the inner wall of the tube, the tube is heated to
a high temperature so as to collapse and form solid preform.
 The preform is subsequently loaded on a fiber drawing tower for drawing fibers.
 A modified method with particularly high precision is plasma impulse chemical vapor deposition
(PICVD), where short microwave pulses are used ill place of CW microwave source.
 Another modified form of PCVD is so• called plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition
(PECVD), which operates at atmospheric pressure with fairly high deposition rate.
 The preforms for multimode fibers, particularly for large core fibers, are often fabricated using
plasma outside deposition (POD), where an outer fluorine-doped layer with depressed refractive
index, later forming the fiber cladding, is made with a plasma torch.
 The core can then be made of pure silica, without any dopant.

Fiber Fabrication Method without Involving Preforms

There are at least two more common methods of fabricating fibers which do not require formation of fiber
preforms; (i) rod-in-tube method, and (ii) double crucible method.

Rod-in-tube method
 In this method, a solid rod of a glass (say, SiOiGe02) with higher refractive index is inserted into a
glass lube (say, Si02) with lower refractive index.
 When the outer tube is heated to a high temperature both the rod and the rube get well connected.
 The combination is then strongly heated so that the combination of the rod and the tube melt and
the bottom of the rube collapses due to surface tension.
 Long fibers can be drawn from the molten material.
 The rod material constitutes the core while the cladding material comes from the rube.
 However, utmost care is required to avoid trapping of air bubbles during fiber drawing.
 Casting methods where the molten core glass is poured into the cladding rube, or sucked into the
tube using a vacuum pump are also used for making fibers without using a preform.

Double crucible method

 Soft glass fibers are generally fabricated by using double crucible method (Midwinter, 1979).

55
 Double crucible method is based on traditional glass making approach wherein Fibers are directly
drawn from molten glass.
 The double crucible setup consists of two concentric crucibles.
 The inner crucible is meant for holding the melt of core glass and the outer for holding the melt of
cladding glass.
 The two crucibles terminate in a common orifice as shown in Fig. 2.28.

 Solid rods of different refractive indices are used as feedstock for the two crucibles.
 Feedstock is generally obtained by first melting ultrapure glass powder and then forming small
pieces of rods.
 The rods are heated by a furnace to a very high temperature for melting the rods.
 The fiber is drawn from the molten stale through the common orifice at, the bottom of the two
concentric crucibles.
 The method can be easily adapted for a variety of glasses without much difficulty as compared to
preform-based fabrication methods.
 However, double crucible method is not suitable for making ultrapure fibers with very low losses
as required in long-haul optical communication.
 The primary reason for this is that there are a number of sources of contamination in this method.
 The contaminants may come from the environment as well as from the crucibles themselves.
 The glass rods are generally obtained by fusing glass powder in silica crucible in order to avoid
other metal contaminations.
 However, in double crucible method crucibles are generally made of metals which contaminate the
molten glass.
 However, use of platinum crucible reduces the contamination from crucibles.
 Plastic optical fibers are generally produced in a simple extrusion process, which is very similar to
the double crucible method.
 A schematic of the double crucible system for drawing halide fiber is shown in Fig. 2.28.

***********
56
Single Mode Fiber structure

11. Explain in detail about the single mode fibers. (or)

Explain the mode field diameter, Propagation modes in single-mode fibers, Birefringence
and Fiber beat length.
Write about the Construction, mode field diameter and Propagation Modes of a single mode
fiber. [Dec 2021]
Single-Mode fibers
Introduction:
 Single mode fibers are designed to allow only one mode of propagation.
o All other modes are attenuated by leakage or absorption.
 The core diameter of the single mode fiber ranges from 8-12 m .
 It has very small index differences between the core and the cladding with normalized frequency
V=2.4.
 The core-cladding index difference varies between 0.2 and 1.0 percent.
 The core diameter should be chosen to be just below the cufoff of the first higher-order mode.
 For the single mode fiber operation, LP01 mode can exist. Single mode propagation of the LP01
mode in step-index fiber is possible over the range.
0  V  2.405
As there is no cutoff for the fundamental mode.

Mode field diameter:

 The mode field diameter (MFD) is an important parameter for characterizing single mode fiber
properties.
 The MFD takes into account the wavelength dependant field penetration into the fiber cladding.
 This parameter can be determined from the mode-field distribution of the fundamental LP01 mode.
 A variety of models for characterizing and the MFD have been proposed.
 The main consideration of all these methods is to approximate the electric field distribution.

Figure: Field distribution across the single-mode fiber.

 Consider the distribution to be Gaussian
 r2
E(r)  E0 exp 2  (1)
 W 0

where,
r - radius of the field distribution

57
 E0 - Field at zero radius
W0 - Width of the electric field distribution

Figure: For a Gaussian distribution, the MFD is given by the e2 width of the optical power

 In this case MFD is generally taken the width 2W0 to be twice the
e1 radius of the optical electric
field (which is equivalent to the e2 radius of the optical power).
 The MFD width 2W0 of the LP01 mode can be defined as
  
 
2 r E (r) dr
3 2

2W  2 0  (2)
0
 
  r E
2
dr 
(r)
 0 
where,
E(r) – field distribution of the LP01 mode.
 In general, the mode field varies with the refractive index profile and thus deviates from Gaussian
distribution.
Propagation modes in single-mode fibers:
 Two independent degenerate modes propagate within the single mode fiber. The modes are very
similar but their polarization planes are orthogonal.

Figure: Two polarizations if the fundamental HE11 mode in a single mode fiber
 Either one of these polarization (horizontal (H) and the vertical (V) polarization) modes constitutes
the fundamental HE11 modes.
58
 In general, the electric field of the light propagating along the fiber is a linear superposition of
these two polarization modes and depends on the polarization of the light at the launching point
into the fiber.
Birefringence:
 Choose two modes.
 One is Electric field polarized along x-direction and the another one is independent orthogonal
mode to be polarized in y-direction.
 Due to irregularities, the polarization modes propagate with different phase velocities and the
difference between their effective refractive indices is called the birefringence.
B f  ny  nx (3)
 The birefringence may also be defined as
  k0 (ny  nx ) (4)

where,
2 free space propagation constant.
k0 


Fiber beat length:

 If light is injected into the fiber so that both modes are excited, then one mode will be delayed in
phase relative to the other as they propagate.
 When this phase difference between two modes is an integral multiple of 2 , 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.
2
LP  (5)

 Substitute equation (4) and (5)
L 2

P
2
(n y  nx )


LP 
(n y  nx )

L 
(6)
P

 Equation (6) gives the relationship between birefringence and fiber beat length
 High birefringence: The maximization of the model birefringence, which may be achieved by
reducing the beat length Lp to around 1 mm or less.
 Low birefringence: The minimization of the model birefringence, which may be achieved by
increasing the beat length Lp to around 50 m or more.
**********

59
Graded Index fiber structure

12. Explain in detail about the graded index fibers. (or)

Explain the Numerical aperture of the graded-index fiber, Total number of guided modes in
graded index fibers. (or)
Discuss briefly about the structure of graded index fiber. [April 2018]
Graded-Index fibers
Introduction:
 In the graded-index fiber design the core refractive index n(r) decreases continuously with
increasing radial distance r from the center of the fiber, but is generally constant in the cladding.
 Graded index fibers do not have a constant refractive index in the core
 The refractive index may be represented as
1/2
 
n1 1  2r   for 0  r  a
   a  
n(r)  n (1  2)1/ 2  n (1  )  for r  a (1)
n
 1 1 2





where,
r - the radial distance from the fiber axis
a - the core radius
n1 - the refractive index at the core axis
n2 - the refractive index at the cladding
 - the profile parameter which gives the characteristic refractive index profile of the core
 - relative refractive index difference

 The index difference  for the graded-index fiber is given by

n2  n2 n  n
 1 2 2  1 2 (2)
2n1 n1

Numerical aperture of the graded-index fiber:

 Determining the NA for graded-index fibers is more complex than for step-index fibers.
 NA is a function of position across the core end face.
 Geometrical optics considerations show that light incident on the fiber core at position r will
propagate as a guided mode only if it is within the local numerical aperture NA(r) at that point.
 The local numerical aperture is defined as
[n2 (r)  n2 ]1/ 2  NA(0)
1  (r / a) for r  a

2 
NA(r)   0 for ra

60
(3)

61
 Equation (3) is a convenient method of expressing the refractive index profile of the fiber core as a
variation of  .
 It allows representation of the step index profile when    , a parabolic profile when   and
2
a triangular profile when   1.
 This range of refractive index profiles is illustrated in following Figure.

 The graded index profiles are best suitable for multimode optical propagation. (a near parabolic
refractive index profile core with   2 ).

Figure. Possible fiber refractive index profiles for different values of  (given in Eq. (3))

Figure: A comparison of the numerical apertures for fibers having various a profiles

 The axial numerical aperture is defined as

NA(0)  [n2 (0)  n2 ]1/2  [n2  n2 ]1/2  n 2 (4)
2 1 2 1

 Thus, 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.

62
 Total number of guided modes:
 The total number of guided modes or mode volume M supported by the graded index fiber is given
by   
M   1ka)2 
(n (5)
2
 
 The normalized frequency V for the fiber,   is approximately given by
when 1
V  n1 k (2)1/ 2 (6)
a
 Substituting equation (6) into equation (5), we have
M     V 2 
  2 4 (7)

  

 For a parabolic refractive index profile core fiber

V2
M   (8)
 4 

************
13. Distinguish between step index and graded index fibers. [Dec 2011]
Contrast the advantages and disadvantages of step index, graded index, single mode
propagation and multimode propagation. [May 2015]

S.No Step index fiber Graded index fiber

1. The refractive index of the core is uniform The refractive index of the core is made to
throughout and undergoes a step change at the vary in a parabolic manner such that the
cladding boundary. maximum refractive index is present at the
center of the core.
2. The light rays propagating though it are in the The light rays propagate in the form of skew
form meridional rays ( zigzag manner). rays or helical rays (helical manne)r.
3. Intermodal dispersion is more in multimode Less intermodal dispersion
step index.
No intermodal dispersion in single mode step
index
4. Bandwidth of the fiber is about 50MHz km Bandwidth of the fiber is about 200 to 600MHz
km.

63
5. Attenuation is more for multimode and less for Less attenuation
single mode

64
 14. Distinguish between single mode and multimode Step index fibers. [Dec 2014]

S.No Single mode Step Index Multimode step index

1. In Single mode fiber only the fundamental In multimode fiber many hundreds of modes can
mode (LP01 or HE11 )can propagate through propagate
the fiber
2. Core diameter is 2 to 10 μm and RRID Δ is Core diameter is 50 to200 μm and RRID Δ is
very small. larger than single mode fiber.
Due to large dispersion and attenuation of the
signal they are less suitable for long distance
communication they are generally used in local
area networks.
3. No intermodal dispersion Intermodal dispersion occurs

4. Because of no dispersion more information Due to dispersion they have lesser bandwidth ≈
can be transmitted per unit of time therefore 50MHz
single mode fiber have more bandwidth in the
range of ≈ 1000MHz

5. Launching of light and fiber jointing is Launching of light and jointing two fibers is easy
difficult
6. Fabrication is difficult and the fiber is costly
Fabrication is not difficult and so the fiber is not
costly
7. The condition for single mode operation If V number V  2.405 and the total number of
given by V number of the fiber is modes MS of a multimode step index fiber is
V  2.405 given by MS = V2 /2
when Vc = 2.405 them the wave length is
called cut – off wavelength of the fiber which
is the minimum wavelength that can be
transmitted through the fiber.
6. LASER is used as optical source LED is used
7. Suitable for long distance communication Not suitable for long distance due to intermodal
dispersion.
It can be used for LAN

**********

65
 PROBLEMS

Problem No.: 1

Problem No.: 2

66
Problem No.: 3

67
Problem No.: 4

Problem No.: 5

68
Problem No.: 6

Problem No.: 7

69
Problem No.: 8

Problem No.: 9

70
Problem No.: 10

Problem No.: 11 [April 2018]

71
Problem No.: 12 [April 2018]

Problem No. 13:

Consider a multimode fiber that has a core refractive index of 1.480 and a core cladding index of 2%. Find
the numerical aperture, the acceptance angle and the critical angle of the fiber. (05 marks) [Nov 2018]
Solution:
(a) From equation n2  n1(1  ) n, we find that the numerical aperture is
NA  2  1.480(0.04)1/ 2  0.296
n1
(b) Using n sin   n si A  n1 si c   n2 )1/ 2
0,max

 n n (n1

Where, c
  c
2
 A  sin1 NA  sin1(0.2996)  17.2o
(c) From equation, sin n2
 the critical angle at the core – cladding interface is,
 n2  c n
1 1
o
   1 (0.980)  78.5
c 
sin sinn
 1
72
Problem No. 14:
Calculate the value of critical angle (with respect to the interface) when light travels from glass (n 1 = 1.5) into
water (n2 = 1.33). What is the value of critical angle with respect to the normal drawn on the interface plane
at the point of incidence? [Nov 2020]

******

73
 UNIT I
INTRODUCTION TO OPTICAL FIBERS
TWO MARKS

1. Write in short about optical fiber cable.

Fiber optic cable:
 A fiber-optic cable is a light pipe that is used to carry a light beam from one place to
another.
 Light is an electromagnetic signal like a radio wave. It can be modulated by information
signal and sent over the fiber-optic cable.
 The frequency of light is extremely high, it can accommodate very wide bandwidths of
information and extremely high data rates can be achieved with excellent reliability.
2. Give the range of optical spectrum for optical fiber. [Nov 2019]
It ranges from about ultraviolet 50 nm to 100 µm for Infrared.

3. What are the advantages of fiber optic cable?

Advantages of optical fiber communication
 Larger Bandwidth (Gbps) - Thousands of channels can be multiplexed together over one
strand of fiber
 Low Loss – number of repeaters reduced (fibers can be made to have only 0.5 dB/km of
attenuation)
 Low cost - silica is abundant raw material
 High Security - Impossible to ‘tap into’.
 Small Size and less weight- easy to handle
 Immunity to Noise - Immune to electromagnetic interference (EMI).
 Safety – no electric hazards.
 Flexibility - Fiber cables can be bend or twisted without damage.

4. What are the limitations of optical fiber cable?

Disadvantages:
 Small size and brittleness – more difficult to work with.
 High installation cost
 Splicing cost is high
5. What is the need for fiber optic communication?
State the reasons to opt for optical fiber communication. [April 2018]
Need of Fiber Optic Communication:
 Fiber optic communication system has emerged as most important communication system.
 A fiber optic communication system fullfills these requirements,
 In long haul transmission it provides low loss transmission medium.
 Compact and least weight transmitters and receivers.
 Increased span of transmission,
 Increased bit rate-distance product.
Hence the optical fiber communication is most widely accepted.
74
6. What are the advantages and disadvantages of ray optics theory? (Nov 2008, 2004
regulation)
Advantages
 It gives more direct physical interpolation of light propagation characteristics in an optical
fiber.
 Good approximation methods to the light acceptance and guiding in fiber in small
wavelength nit.
Disadvantage
 Ray optics does not predict every mode of curved fibers.
 It does not solve the interface problem
 Inaccurate for non zero wavelength unit when number of guided mode is large.

7. Give the range of operation of three windows of operation.

For I window - 850 nm
II Window - 1330 nm
III window - 1550 nm

8. What is the function of transmitter in fiber optic communication?

Transmitter:
 It consisting of a light source and its associated drive circuitry
 Drive circuit: The drive circuit is used to drive the electrical signal to the light source.
 Light source:
 It converts the electric signal into an optical signal.
 Linear variation in drive current results in a corresponding linear change in the
optical output power, an optical source is called square-law device.
 Example: Semiconductor laser, LED.
9. What is the function of fiber optic cable in fiber optic communication?
Cable:
 In fiber optic communications, the fiber optic cables are used as channels.
 Fiber-optic cables are made from glass and plastic. Glass has the lowest loss but is brittle.
 Plastic is cheaper and more flexible, but has high attenuation.
 For the long distance optical communication, repeaters tare used to compensate the
attenuation loss.
10. What is the function of repeaters in fiber optic communication?
Repeaters:
 It contains optical receiver, amplifier and optical transmitter.
 It is needed for periodically amplifying and reshaping the signal in long-distance links
 Optical receiver:
 Converts received optical signal into electric signal and amplified.
 Then reshaped and sent to the electric input of the amplifier.
 Amplifier

75
  It receives the electric signal from the optical receiver and amplify the signal, then
send it to the optical transmitter.
 Optical transmitter:
 It converts the electric signal back to an optical signal and sends it down the optical
fiber waveguide.
11. What is the function performed in the receiver section?
Receiver:
 It consisting of a photodetector plus amplification and signal-restoring circuitry.
 The receiver consists of a detector that will detect the optical signal and convert them into
an electrical current.
 This electric current developed by the detector is proportional to the power in the incident
optical signal.
 Detector output current contains the transmitted information.
12. What is meant by index of refraction?
The ratio of the speed of light in a vacuum to that matter is the index of refraction n of the
material is given by
c
n
v
c -Velocity of light in free space (3X10 m/sec)
8

Typical values of n are 1.00 for air, 1.33 for water, 1.50 for glass, and 2.42 for diamond.

13. What is meant by plane of incidence?

The incident ray, the normal to the interface, and the reflected ray all lie in the same plane,
which is perpendicular to the interface plane between the two materials. This is called the plane of
incidence.

14. Differentiate internal and external reflections. (or)

What is meant by internal and external reflections?
 When light traveling in a certain medium is reflected off an optically denser material (one
with a higher refractive index), the process is referred to as external reflection.
 Conversely, the reflection of light off of less optically dense material (such as light
traveling in glass being reflected at a glass-to-air interface) is called internal reflection
15. What are the conditions from total internal reflections? [Dec 2012, Reg-2004]
(a) Light should travel from denser medium to rarer medium.
(b) The angle of incidence should be greater than the critical angle of the denser medium

16. What is critical angle?

If the angle of incidence 1 is decreased, a point will eventually be reached where the light
ray in air is parallel to the glass surface. This point is known as the critical angle of incidence c .
The critical angle in the glass is given by

sin c n2
n
1

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17. Define refractive index.
Refractive index:
The refractive index of a medium is defined as the ratio of the velocity of light in a
vacuum to the velocity of light in the medium.

18. When the refraction will occur?

Refraction: When a ray is incident on the interface of two dielectrics having different refractive
indices (e.g. glass–air), the refraction occurs.

19. Write the expression for the refractive index in graded index fibers.
[n2 (r)  n2 ]1/ 2  NA(0)
1  (r / a) for r  a
2

NA(r)   0 for r  a r- radial distance from fiber


where,
a -core radius
n1 -refractive index at the core
n2 -refractive index at the cladding
α -shape of the index profile
∆- index difference

20. Define total internal reflection.

Total internal reflection: At angles of incidence greater than the critical angle ( 1 >  c) the light
is reflected back into the originating dielectric medium (total internal reflection) with high
efficiency (around 99.9%).
21. Define Numerical aperture of a step index fiber. (Dec 2012, Dec 2016)
Numerical aperture (N.A) of the fiber is the light collecting efficiency of the fiber and is the
measure of the amount of light rays that can be accepted by the fiber. It is equal to the sine of
acceptance.

where n1 and n2 are the refractive indices of core and cladding respectively.
22. What is Snell’s law?
Snell discovered the relationship between the refractive indices of the materials and the
sine of the angles as:

where, n1 -refractive index at the core

n2 -refractive index at the cladding

23. What is order of a mode?

The order of a mode is equal to the number of field zeros across the guide.

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24. What is the necessity of cladding for an optical fiber? [May 2019]
i. To provide proper light guidance inside the core
ii. To avoid leakage of light from the fiber
iii. To avoid mechanical stress for the fiber
iv. To protect the core from scratches and other mechanical damages
25. What are the uses of optical fibers?
i. To transmit the information which are in the form of coded signals of the telephone
communication, Computer data, etc.
ii. To transmit the optical images (Example: Endoscopy)
iii. To act as a light source at the inaccessible places.
iv. To act as sensors to do mechanical, electrical and magnetic measurements.

26. What is the principle used in the working of fibers as light guides? (or)
Why partial reflection does not suffice the propagation of light. [Nov 2017]
The phenomenon of total internal reflection is used to guide the light in the optical fiber. To
get total internal reflection, the ray should travel from denser to rarer i.e. from core to clad region
of the fiber and the angle of incidence in the denser medium should be greater than the critical
angle of that medium.

27. What types of fibers are used commonly?

(i) Based on refractive index profile
a. Step index
b. Graded index
(ii) Based on propagation
a. Mono-mode (or) single mode
b. Multimode

28. Explain guided mode.

Guided mode is a pattern of electric and magnetic field distributions that is repeated along the
fiber at equal intervals.

29. What are step index and graded index fibers?

In the case of step index fiber, the refractive index of a core is a constant and is larger than
the refractive index of the cladding. The light propagation is mainly by meridional rays.
In the case of graded index fiber (GRIN fiber) the refractive index of the core varies
parabolically from the centre of the core having maximum refractive index to the core-cladding
interface having constant minimum refractive index. Here the light propagation is by skew rays.

30. Define acceptance angle.

The maximum angle ‘Φmax’ with which a ray of light can enter through the entrance end of
the fiber and still be totally internally reflected is called acceptance angle of the fiber.

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31. Why do we prefer step index single mode fiber for long distance communication? [May 2019]
Step index single mode fiber has
a) low attenuation due to smaller core diameter
b) higher bandwidth
c) very low dispersion.
32. Define relative refractive index difference
The relative refractive index difference is the ratio between the refractive index difference
(of core and cladding) and refractive index of core.

33. What are meridional rays?

The light ray enters the fiber core from a medium of refractive index n at an angle 0 with
respect to the fiber axis and strikes the core-cladding interface at a normal angle  .
If it strikes this interface at an angle that it is totally internally reflected, the meridional ray
follows a zigzag path along the fiber core, passing through the axis of the guide after each
reflection.
34. What are skew rays? (December 2009, Regulation 2005)

 Skew rays are not confined to a single plane.

 Skew rays tend to follow a helical type path, along the fiber as shown in Figure.
 Skew rays do not lie in a single plane, these rays are more difficult to track, as they travel
along the fiber.
35. Distinguish between meridional rays from skew rays. [Nov 2018]]
Sl. No. Meridional rays Skew rays
1. The meridional ray follows a zigzag Skew rays tend to follow a helical type
path along the fiber core path, along the fiber
2. Meridional rays are confined to a single Skew rays are not confined to a single
plane plane

36. What is V-number of fiber or normalized frequency of fiber?

V-number of fiber or normalized frequency of fiber is used to find the number of
propagating modes through the fiber.

79
 In step index fiber number of modes propagating through the fiber, Ms =V2/ 2
In graded index fiber number of modes propagating through the fiber, Mg=(α/ α+2)V2/2
Taking the two possible polarizations, total number of possible modes propagating through
the fiber.

37. Give the relation between numerical aperture of skew rays and meridional rays.
(N.A)skew = cos γ(N.A) of meridional when the fiber is placed in air.
Here γ is the half of the angular change in every reflection.
38. Define Mode-field diameter. [or]
Why do we calculate mode field diameter? Write its significance. [Nov 2020]
The fundamental parameter of a single mode fiber is the mode-field diameter. This can be
determined from the mode field distribution of the fundamental LP 01 mode. This is analogous to
the core diameter in multimode fiber
r2
E(r)  E0 exp( 2 ); MFD  W0=spot size
W0 2W0

At r=w0 , E(w0) =E0/e

39. Define linearly polarized modes.

The characteristics of TE01 & TM01 & HE21 are similar (i.e,) these modes are having some
electric filed pattern and the propagation constant and the modes are said to be degenerate. The
degenerate modes are called linearly polarized modes. The linearly polarized modes classification
depends upon the light intensity distribution rather then the electric filed configuration.
40. What is called Leaky modes?

State leaky modes in optical fiber communication. [Dec 2021]

These leaky modes are only confined to the care region and attenuate by as they propagate
along the fiber. This power radiating out of the waveguide results from a quantum mechanical
phenomena known Tunnel effect.
41. What is tunnel effect in optical fiber? (December 2009, Regulation 2005)

The leaky modes are continuously radiating their power out of the core as they propagate
along the fiber. This power radiation out of the waveguide in quantum mechanical phenomenon is
referred as tunnel effect.
42. When do you have phase shift during total internal reflection of light?
When the light ray travels from denser medium to rarer medium, if the angle of incidence is
greater than the critical angle of core medium, there is a phase shift for both TE and TM waves.

80
43. What are hybrid modes? Give two examples.
Hybrid modes are the mixture of TE and TM modes that can be traveled through the optical fiber.
Examples:
1. HE
1m modes in which |Ez|>|Hz|
2. EH
1m modes in which |Hz|>|Ez|

44. Define cutoff wavelength of the fiber.

 Cutoff wavelength λc is the wavelength above which a particular fiber becomes single-moded.

Where,
Vc - the cutoff normalized frequency.
45. Mention the rule distinguishing ‘mode’ and ‘order’. ( Nov/dec 2007)
The rule states that, smaller the modes propagating angle, the lower the order of the mode.
Thus the mode traveling precisely along the fiber’s central axis, is zero mode.
46. What is fiber birefringence?
The polarization modes propagate with different phase velocities and the difference between their
effective refractive indices is called the birefringence.
Bf  ny  nx (1)

The birefringence may also be defined as

  k0 (ny  nx ) (2)
where,
2 free space propagation constant.
k0 

47. Give the expression for numerical aperture in graded index fibers.
The local numerical aperture in graded index fibers is defined as
[n2 (r)  n2 ]1/ 2  NA(0)
for r  a
2 1  (r / a)

NA(r)   0 for r  a


Where,
NA(0) = axial numerical aperture = (n12- n22)1/2
a is core radius and α is the refractive index profile.
r - the radial distance from the fiber axis
a - the core radius
n1 - the refractive index at the core axis
n2 - the refractive index at the cladding
 - the profile parameter which gives the characteristic refractive index profile of the core
 - relative refractive index difference
81
48. What is group velocity?

82
 If L is the distance traveled by the pulse, β is the propagation constant along axis then the
group velocity in the velocity at which energy in a pulse travels along the fiber.
Vg = C.(dβ/dk)

49. What is group delay?

In an optical fiber there are various modes present. Then the optical input, which is
propagated along the fiber, will travel in various modes. Because of these modes the velocity of
the signal will vary also there may be a delay in the optical signal of these various modes. This is
called as the ‘Group Delay.
50. What is Mode Coupling?
In initial length coupling of energy from one mode to another arises because of structural
irregularities, fiber diameter etc. The individual mode do not propagate throughout the length of
the fiber without large energy transfer to adjacent modes, even when the fiber is of good quality or
not being bent. This mode conversion is called mode coupling
51. What is effective cut-off wavelength?
It is defined as the largest wavelength at which the higher order LP 11 mode power relative
to the fundamental LP01 mode power is reduced to 0.1db.
52. Mention the advantages and disadvantages of monomode fiber over muiltimode fiber. (May
2008), (May 2011, Regulation 2004)
Advantage
 used for long distance communication
 more bandwidth
 no dispersion
 best to retain the fidelity of each pulse.
Disadvantage
 Due to smaller diameter, launching of optical power into the fiber is difficult.
 Manufacturing cost is high.
 Laser source used in this fiber is very costly.
53. Differentiate Monomode and Multimode fibers. (Dec 2010, Regulation 2004)
SL. No. Single mode Multimode
1 Only one mode propagate along the More than one number of modes are
fiber propagate along the fiber.
2 Laser is used as light source LED and Laser can be used as light
source
3 Launching of light source is difficult. Launching of light source is easy
4 Used for long distance communication Used for local area networks
5 Intramodal dispersion occurs Intermodal dispersion occurs.

6 Supports more bandwidth Supports lesser bandwidth

7 Manufacturing & Installation is difficult Manufacturing & Installation is easy
and costly.
54. Mention any two limitations of Fiber optical Communication system. [Dec 2010]
 Not suitable for short distance and low bandwidth applications
 Fiber splicing is expensive.

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  Susceptibility to physical damage
55. Sketch the cross sectional view of the transverse electric field and vectors for the four lowest
order modes in a step index fiber. [April 2018]
 Two independent degenerate modes propagate within the single mode fiber. The modes are
very similar but their polarization planes are orthogonal.

Figure: Two polarizations if the fundamental HE11 mode in a single mode fiber
 Either one of these polarization (horizontal (H) and the vertical (V) polarization) modes
constitutes the fundamental HE11 modes.
56. A manufacturing engineer wants to make an optical fiber that has a core index of
1.480 and a cladding index of 1.478. What should the core size be for single-mode operation
at 1550nm. [Nov 2018]
Solution:
Using the condition that V  must be satisfied for single-mode operation, then from
2.405
V 2.405 1
  2 1   7.7m
1.55m
(1.480)  (1.478)2
2
n2
12  n2 2
57. What is called as fiber pigtail flylead? [Nov 2020]
Fibre pigtail Flyleads
The Fibre Optic Flylead is a fibre optic cable capped at either end with connectors that
allow it to be rapidly and conveniently connected to an optical switch or other telecommunication
equipment.
58. Problem: A step-index fiber has a normalized frequency V = 26.6 at a 1300-nm wavelength.
If the core radius is 25 mm, what is the numerical aperture? [Dec 2021]
Given:
Normalized frequency, V = 26.6
Operating wavelength,  =1300nm = 130010-9 m
Core radius, a = 25 mm = 25 10-3 m
To find: Numerical aperture, NA= ?
Solution:

Normalized frequency, V  2a (NA)


2  25 10-3
26.6  (NA)
1300 109
84
 NA  26.6 1300 109
3.458 105
2  25 10-3  0.15707

NA  2.201104

*****
ANNA UNIVERSITY, CHENNAI
AFFILIATED INSTITUTIONS
B.E. ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING
REGULATIONS – 2017
EC8751 - OPTICAL COMMUNICATION
OBJECTIVES:
 To study about the various optical fiber modes, configuration and transmission characteristics of
optical fibers
 To learn about the various optical sources, detectors and transmission techniques
 To explore various idea about optical fiber measurements and various coupling techniques
 To enrich the knowledge about optical communication systems and networks

UNIT I INTRODUCTION TO OPTICAL FIBERS 9

Introduction-general optical fiber communication system- basic optical laws and definitions optical modes
and configurations - Mode analysis for optical propagation through fibers - modes in planar wave guide -
modes in cylindrical optical fiber - transverse electric and transverse magnetic modes - fiber materials -
fiber fabrication techniques - fiber optic cables classification of optical fiber - single mode fiber - graded
index fiber.

UNIT II TRANSMISSION CHARACTERISTIC OF OPTICAL FIBER 9

Attenuation-absorption --scattering losses-bending losses-core and cladding losses-signal dispersion –inter
symbol interference and bandwidth-intra model dispersion-material dispersion- waveguide dispersion-
polarization mode dispersion-intermodal dispersion - dispersion optimization of single mode fiber-
characteristics of single mode fiber- R-I Profile- cutoff wave length-dispersion calculation-mode field
diameter.

UNIT III OPTICAL SOURCES AND DETECTORS 9

Sources: Intrinsic and extrinsic material-direct and indirect band gaps-LED-LED structures surface
emitting LED-Edge emitting LED-quantum efficiency and LED power-light source materials-modulation
of LED-LASER diodes-modes and threshold conditions-Rate equations-external quantum efficiency-
resonant frequencies-structures and radiation patterns-single mode laser-external modulation-temperature
effort.
Detectors: PIN photo detector-Avalanche photo diodes-Photo detector noise-noise sources-SNR-detector
response time-Avalanche multiplication noise-temperature effects – comparisons of photo detectors.
UNIT IV OPTICAL RECEIVER, MEASUREMENTS AND COUPLING 9
Fundamental receiver operation-preamplifiers-digital signal transmission-error sources-Front end
amplifiers-digital receiver performance-probability of error-receiver sensitivity-quantum limit.
Optical power measurement-attenuation measurement-dispersion measurement- Fiber Numerical Aperture
Measurements- Fiber cut- off Wave length Measurements- Fiber diameter measurements-Source to Fiber
Power Launching-Lensing Schemes for Coupling Management-Fiber to Fiber Joints- LED Coupling to
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Single Mode Fibers-Fiber Splicing Optical Fiber connectors.

86
UNIT V OPTICAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS 9
System design consideration Point – to –Point link design –Link power budget –rise time budget, WDM –
Passive DWDM Components-Elements of optical networks-SONET/SDH Optical Interfaces-
SONET/SDH Rings and Networks-High speed light wave Links-OADM configuration-Optical
ETHERNET-Soliton.

TOTAL: 45 PERIODS

OUTCOMES:
At the end of the course, the student should be able to:
 Realize basic elements in optical fibers, different modes and configurations.
 Analyze the transmission characteristics associated with dispersion and polarization techniques.
 Design optical sources and detectors with their use in optical communication system.
 Construct fiber optic receiver systems, measurements and coupling techniques.
 Design optical communication systems and its networks.

TEXT BOOKS:
1. P Chakrabarti, "Optical Fiber Communication‖, McGraw Hill Education (India) Private Limited, 2016
(UNIT I, II, III).
2. Gred Keiser,"Optical Fiber Communication‖, McGraw Hill Education (India) Private Limited. Fifth
Edition, Reprint 2013. (UNIT I, IV, V)

REFERENCES:
1. John M.Senior, “Optical fiber communication”, Pearson Education, second edition.2007.
2. Rajiv Ramaswami, “Optical Networks”, Second Edition, Elsevier , 2004.
3. J.Gower, “Optical Communication System”, Prentice Hall of India, 2001.
4. Govind P. Agrawal, “Fiber-optic communication systems”, third edition, John Wiley & sons, 2004.

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