Rownaq Jahan

Lecturer
Dept. of EEE
Green University of Bangladesh
Transmission Characteristics of Optical Fiber

Transmission
characteristics

Attenuation or Delay
Fiber Loss Distortion

Material Material Waveguide

Absorption Scattering Imperfections
⚫ Signal attenuation (also known as ‘fiber loss’ or ‘signal loss’)
is one of the most important properties of an optical fiber,
because it determines the maximum repeaterless separation
between transmitter and receiver. Fiber attenuation is
important because a lightwave receiver requires at least a
minimum amount of signal power to detect a transmitted
bit with an acceptable error rate.
⚫ Of equal importance is the signal distortion in fiber,
which causes optical signal pulses to broaden as
they travel along the fiber. The signal distortion limits
the information-carrying capacity of a fiber.

These are the two principal factors to determine the

optical transmission characteristics of fiber.
Fiber Loss
⚫ Mathematical analysis of fiber loss:
Changes in power P of a bit stream propagating inside an optical fiber
dP
= − P
dz
α is attenuation constant which includes all sources of power loss

Pin Pout
Pout = Pine − L

 (numerical ) =  (dB/km)  −10 (0.434294) ln

1 Pin
ln
1 Pout
L Pout L Pin
 (dB/km ) = −
10 P
log out  4.434
L Pin
10  Pout 
= − log10 e log e  
L  in 
P
Fiber Loss
⚫ Mathematical Problem:

 
Factors affecting the fiber loss:
⚫ Material Absorption
Intrinsic Absorption:
➔ absorption by fused silica (SiO2)
➔ electronic and vibrational rasononaces associated with specific
molecules due to absorption of power at certain wavelength
➔ for silica molecules, electronic resonances occur in the UV region (λ <
0.4 μm) whereas vibrational resonances occur in the infrared region (λ > 7
μm)
➔ intrinsic absorption for silica; λ-range: 0.8‒1.6 μm, below 0.1 dB/km
in fact below 0.03 dB/km in the 1.3 ~1.6 μm range
Extrinsic Absorption:
➔ absorption by impurities within silica (SiO2)
➔ transition metal impurities such as Fe, Cu, Co, Ni, Mn, and Cr absorb in
the wavelength range 0.6‒1.6 μm
➔ the main source of extrinsic absorption is the presence of water vapors.
OH ion dissolves in glass. Three absorption peaks occur near 1.39-, 1.24-,
0.95- μm wavelengths due to presence of residual water vapor in silica.
Attenuation Spectrum for SMF
Extrinsic Absorption

⚫ Material Scattering
Rayleigh Scattering: This is the dominant loss mechanism arising from
local microscopic fluctuations in density
➔ the density and compositional variations are frozen into
the glass on cooling
➔ density fluctuations lead to random fluctuations of
refractive index which cause light scattering- Rayleigh
scattering
➔ the loss due to Rayleigh scattering:

R = C 4
Where C is constant in the range of 0.7-09 (dB/km)- μm4
depending on the constituents of the core
αR = 0.12‒0.16 dB/km at λ=1.55 μm
• Waveguide Imperfections:
Mie Scattering: Due to imperfections at the core-cladding interface
(say core radius variation), scattering of light occurs because of index
inhomogeneities
this loss is typically below 0.03 dB/km
Macro-bending Loss
➔ According to ray optics theory: a guided ray hits the core-cladding
interface at an angle greater than critical angle to experience total
internal reflection. The angle decreases near a bend and may be smaller
than critical angle for tight bends. Hence, ray would escape out of fiber.
➔ In terms of mode theory: the part of mode outside the bend is required
to travel faster than that on the inside so that a wavefront
perpendicular to the direction of propagation is maintained. Hence, part
of the mode in the cladding region needs to travel faster than the
velocity of light in that medium. Since it is not possible, energy
associated with this part of the mode is lost through radiation.
➔ Bending loss is negligible (<0.01 dB/km) for bend radius R>5mm,
practically most bends exceed R=5mm.
⚫ Micro-bending loss: Microscopic meandering of core axis is known as
micro-bending
➔ Slight surface imperfections during manufacturing, cabling process or
cable installation, during service, due to stress for temperature variation
etc.
➔ It can cause mode coupling between adjacent modes which in turn cause
radiation loss.
Dry Fiber

⚫ Dry fiber is developed which has very low loss over the
entire wavelength range of 1.3 to 1.65 μm.
⚫ Lightwave systems with thousands of channels are possible
Dispersion
⚫ Intermodal Dispersion: only in MMF 🢥 In multimode fiber,
intermodal dispersion is due to the difference in propagation of various
modes of the same signal
⚫ Intramodal Dispersion (Chromatic Dispersion):
Both SMF and MMF: intramodal dispersion occurs within a single
mode, because of group velocity being a function of wavelength
Signal distortion occurs from the effect that the velocity of propagation of
a light becomes frequency dependent in the fiber. This dependence is
c
expressed by the following equation v =
g
dn
n−
d
Where vg is the group velocity, n is refractive index of fiber
medium,  is wavelength of light and c is the light velocity.
Thus different frequency components of the optical signal
propagate at different velocities. The time delay between
different spectral components causes spectral broadening of the
optical pulses.
Dispersion

Input pulses Optical fiber Output pulses

⚫ After certain overlap, the adjacent pulses can no longer

be individually distinguishable. This is known as
intersymbol interference (ISI) as illustrated in Figure.
Dispersion
Optical fiber Output pulses
 Group Velocity Dispersion (GVD)
Consider a fiber with length L, if Δω is the spectral width
of the pulse, the extent of pulse broadening for L:

dT d  L d
T =  =  ; vg = The parameter β 2 is
d d  vg  d known as GVD
d  d  parameter which
= L    determines the how
d  d 
much a pulse would
d2
= L 2  broaden on propagation
d inside the fiber.
d 2 Unit: ps2/km
= L2; where 2 = 2
d
 Mathematical Example
The dispersion for a glass fiber is 20ps/nm/km at
a wavelength of 1.5 µm. Estimate pulse
broadening due to chromatic dispersion within
the fiber when the light is launched from an
injection laser source with a peak wavelength of
1.5 µm and a spectral width of 2 nm into a 30
km fiber.
 Types of Dispersion
Chromatic
Dispersion

Material Waveguide Profile

Dispersion Dispersion Dispersion

⚫ Material Dispersion
(DM): It occurs due to
refractive index of
silica, which changes
with optical frequency.
🢥 n=f(λ)
 d 1 c
DM = ; put vg =
d  vg  n−
dn
d

=
 d 2n
2 ;
n = n1 or n = n2
c d
DM  122 1− ZD  ; Empirical relation
 
ZD is zero-dispersion wavelength
since at =ZD , DM = 0.
⚫ Waveguide Dispersion (DW): Due to waveguide design or
structure
⚫ Core radius, index DW =
⚫ D is negative in the range
⚫ 0-1.7μm 2
where,V = a (NA )
⚫ It shifts the λZD so that the total 
is zero near 1.3μm or 1.55μm
ZMD: Zero material
dispersion point

⚫ Profile Dispersion (DP): Due to variation of index

difference with frequency d
DP 
⚫ Negligible d
⚫ Total Dispersion: DT = DM + DW + DP
DP  0
 30

20 SMF

Dc (ps/nm1-0
NZDSF
km)
0
DSF

-10

-20

-30
1250 1350 1450 1550 1650
Wavelength (nm)

⚫ The fact that waveguide dispersion has opposite sign

compared to the material dispersion is of considerable
practical interest, which can be utilized to develop special
fibers, such as dispersion flattened fiber (DF), dispersion
shifted fiber (DSF) and nonzero dispersion shifted fiber
(NZDSF) etc.
Different Types of Fibers
Fiber Parameters
Dispersion (DSF) 0 ps/nm-km @1550nm
Dispersion (NZDSF) ±2 to ±5 ps/nm-km
17 ps/nm-km @1550nm
Dispersion (SMF)
But 0@1300nm
Dispersion slope (DSF) 0.055 ps/nm2-km
Dispersion slope (NZDSF) 0.07 ps/nm2-km
Dispersion slope (SMF) 0.09 ps/nm2-km

⚫ DFF: low loss, low dispersion: 1.3 to 1.6μm

Dispersion Compensating Fiber (DCF)

DCF has negative dispersion which is used to compensate for the accumulated
dispersion of SSMF and NZDSF. An appropriate length of DCF (with dispersion like
-70 to -300 ps/nm-km) is inserted into SSMF/NZDSF. Overall dispersion can be
Kept zero using DCF properly at a particular wavelength.
Dispersion Management
SSMF SSMF SSMF SSMF

1 2 3 4

DCF DCF DCF DCF

Low (-ve) Dispersion Fibers High (+ve) Dispersion

Fibers

Phase matching created Pulse broadening- ISI

- high NL but low ISI occurs but NL reduces

By alternately changing dispersion, one type of fiber with

positive dispersion and other with negative dispersion, such
that overall dispersion for entire transmission length will be
minimum