WDM Concepts and

Components
 WDM
• The technology of combining a number
of independent information-carrying
wavelengths onto the same fiber is
known as wavelength division
multiplexing or WDM.
 Overview of WDM
• The original optical fiber links that were deployed
around 1980 consisted of simple point-to-point
connections.
• In these early systems, signals from different light
sources used separate and uniquely assigned optical
fibers.
• WDM allows increase in the capacity of an optical
fiber compared to the original simple point-to-point
link that carried only a single wavelength
• In WDM, optical channels can support different
transmission formats
 Operational Principles of WDM
• A characteristic of WDM is that the discrete
wavelengths form an orthogonal set of carriers
that can be separated, routed, and switched
without interfering with each other
• The implementation of sophisticated WDM
networks requires a variety of passive and active
devices to combine, distribute, isolate, and amplify
optical power at different wavelengths
• Passive devices require no external control for
their operation while the wavelength-dependent
performance of active devices can be controlled
electronically or optically
• At the transmitting end there are several
independently modulated light sources, each
emitting signals at a unique wavelength.
• Multiplexer is needed to combine these optical
outputs into a continuous spectrum of signals and
couple them onto a single fiber.
• At the receiving end a demultiplexer is required to
separate the optical signals into appropriate
detection channels for signal processing.
 Isolators and Circulators
• Nonreciprocal devices works differently when
its inputs and outputs are reversed.
• Light can be represented as a combination of a
parallel vibration and a perpendicular
vibration, which are called the two orthogonal
plane polarization states of a lightwave
• A polarizer is a material or device that
transmits only one polarization component and
blocks the other.
• A Faraday rotator is a device that rotates the
state of polarization (SOP) of light passing
through it by a specific angular amount.
• A device made from birefringent materials
(called a walk-off polarizer) splits the light
signal entering it into two orthogonally
(perpendicularly) polarized beams, which then
follow different paths through the material.
• A half-wave plate rotates the SOP clockwise by
45° for signals going from left to right, and
counterclockwise by 45° for signals
propagating in the other direction.
 Optical Isolators
• Optical isolators are devices that allow light to
pass through them in only one direction
• This is important in a number of instances to
prevent scattered or reflected light from traveling
in the reverse direction
polarization-independent isolator
• The core of the device consists of a 45° Faraday
rotator that is placed between two wedge-shaped
birefringent plates or walk-off polarizers.
• These plates consist of a material such as YVO4 or
TiO2
• Light traveling in the forward direction is
separated into ordinary and extraordinary rays by
the first birefringent plate
• The Faraday rotator then rotates the polarization
plane of each ray by 45°.
• After exiting the Faraday rotator, the two
rays pass through the second birefringent
plate.
• The axis of this polarizer plate is oriented in
such a way that the relationship between the
two types of rays is maintained.
• Thus, when they exit the polarizer, they
both are refracted in an identical parallel
direction.
• Going in the reverse direction, the relationship of
the ordinary and extraordinary rays is reversed
when exiting the Faraday rotator due to the
nonreciprocity of the Faraday rotation.
• Consequently, the rays diverge when they exit the
left-hand birefringent plate and are not coupled to
the fiber anymore.
 Optical Circulators
• An optical circulator is a nonreciprocal multiport
passive device that directs light sequentially from
port to port in only one direction
• Typically it consists of a number of walk-off
polarizers, half-wave plates, and Faraday rotators
and has three or four ports
• To see how it works, consider the three-port
circulator. Here an input on port 1 is sent out on
port 2, an input on port 2 is sent out on port 3, and
an input on port 3 is sent out on port 1.
 Fiber Grating Filters
• A grating is an important element in WDM
systems for combining and separating individual
wavelengths.
• Basically, a grating is a periodic structure or
perturbation in a material.
• This variation in the material has the property of
reflecting or transmitting light in a certain
direction depending on the wavelength.
• Thus, gratings can be categorized as either
reflecting or transmitting gratings.
 Grating Basics
• Here, θi is the incident angle of the light,
• θd is the diffracted angle, and is the period
of the grating (the periodicity of the
structural variation in the material)
• A transmission grating consisting of a series
of equally spaced slits, the spacing between
two adjacent slits is called the pitch of the
grating
• Constructive interference at a wavelength
lambda occurs in the imaging plane when the
rays diffracted at the angle θd satisfy the
grating equation given by, (m is called the
order of the grating.)
EXTERNAL-WRITING TECHNIQUE.
• A fiber grating is a narrowband reflection
filter that is fabricated through a
photoimprinting process
• The technique is based on the observation
that germanium-doped silica fiber exhibits
high photosensitivity to ultraviolet light
• This means that one can induce a change in
the refractive index of the core by exposing it
to ultraviolet radiation such as 244 nm
• The grating fabrication is accomplished by means
of two ultraviolet beams transversely irradiating
the fiber to produce an interference pattern in the
core.
• Here, the regions of high intensity cause an
increase in the local refractive index of the
photosensitive core, whereas it remains unaffected
in the zero-intensity regions.
• A permanent reflective Bragg grating is thus
written into the core.
• When a multi-wavelength signal encounters the
grating, those wavelengths that are phase-matched
to the Bragg reflection condition are reflected and
all others are transmitted.
The maximum reflectivity R of the grating occurs when
the Bragg condition holds; that is, at a reflection
wavelength lBragg where

and neff is the effective index of the core. At this

wavelength, the peak reflectivity Rmax for the
grating of length L and coupling coefficient k is
given by
FBG Applications
 Dielectric Thin-Film Filters
• A dielectric thin-film filter (TFF) is used as an optical
bandpass filter
• This means that it allows a particular very narrow
wavelength band to pass straight through it and
reflects all others.
• The basis of these devices is a classical Fabry-Perot
filter structure, which is a cavity formed by two
parallel highly reflective mirror surfaces, as shown.
• This structure is called a Fabry-Perot interferometer
or an etalon. It also is known as a thin-film resonant
cavity filter.
• Consider a light signal that is incident on the left
surface of the etalon.
• After the light passes through the cavity and hits
the inside surface on the right, some of the light
leaves the cavity and some is reflected.
• The amount of light that is reflected depends on
the reflectivity R of the surface.
• If the roundtrip distance between the two mirrors
is an integral multiple of a wavelength l (i.e., l, 2l,
3l, etc.), then all light at those wavelengths that
pass through the right facet add in phase.
• This means that these wavelengths interfere
constructively in the device output beam so they
add in intensity.
•
• These wavelengths are called the resonant
wavelengths of the cavity. The etalon rejects
all other wavelengths.
 Etalon Theory
• The transmission T of an ideal etalon in which
there is no light absorption by the mirrors is
an Airy function given by

where R is the reflectivity of the mirrors (the fraction of light

reflected by the mirror) and phi is the roundtrip phase change
of the light beam. If one ignores any phase change at the mirror
surface, then the phase change for a wavelength l is
• Each dielectric layer acts as a nonabsorbing
reflecting surface, so that the structure is a
series of resonance cavities each of which is
surrounded by mirrors.
• As the number of cavities increases, the
passband of the filter sharpens up to create a
flat top for the filter, which is a desirable
characteristic for a practical filter.
TFF Applications
• To separate the four wavelengths from one fiber
into four physically independent channels, the
directions of the arrows are reversed.
• Since a light beam loses some of its power at
each TFF because the filters are not perfect, this
multiplexing architecture works for only a
limited number of channels.
• This usually is specified as being 16 channels or
less.
Diffraction Gratings
• A diffraction grating is a conventional optical
device that spatially separates the different
wavelengths contained in a beam of light.
• The device consists of a set of diffracting elements,
such as narrow parallel slits or grooves, separated
by a distance comparable to the wavelength of
light.
• .
• Reflection gratings are fine ruled or etched
parallel lines on some type of reflective surface
• With these gratings, light will bounce off the
grating at an angle.
• The angle at which the light leaves the grating
depends on its wavelength, so the reflected light
fans out in a spectrum.
• For DWDM applications, the lines are spaced
equally and each individual wavelength will be
reflected at a slightly different angle
• There can be a reception fiber at each of the
positions where the reflected light gets focused.
• Thus individual wavelengths will be directed to
separate fibers. The reflective diffraction
grating works reciprocally; that is, if different
wavelengths come into the device on the
individual input fibers, all of the wavelengths
will be focused back into one fiber after
traveling through the device.
• One type of transmission grating, which is
known as a phase grating, consists of a
periodic variation of the refractive index of
the grating.
• These may be characterized by a Q-
parameter, which is defined as

where lAMBDA is wavelength, d is the thickness of the grating, ng is the refractive

index of the material, alpha is the incident angle,
• The phase grating is called thin for Q < 1 and
thick for Q > 10.
• After a spectrum of wavelength channels
passes through the grating, each wavelength
emerges at a slightly different angle and can
be focused into a receiving fiber.
 Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs)
• Used for optical communication systems
requiring bit rates less than approximately
100–200 Mb/s together with multimode
fiber
 Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs)
• An LED must have a high radiance output, a fast
emission response time, and a high quantum
efficiency
• radiance (or brightness) is a measure, in watts, of
the optical power radiated into a unit solid angle
per unit area of the emitting surface.
• The emission response time is the time delay
between the application of a current pulse and the
onset of optical emission
• The quantum efficiency is related to the fraction of
injected electron–hole pairs that recombine
radiatively
• The LED structure must provide a means of
confining the charge carriers and the stimulated
optical emission to the active region of the pn
junction where radiative recombination takes
place.
• Double-heterostructure (or heterojunction) device:
two different alloy layers on each side of the active
region
• The bandgap differences of adjacent layers
confine the charge carriers, while the differences
in the indices of refraction of adjoining layers
confine the optical field to the central active layer
GaAlAs double-heterostructure light emitter
• The two basic LED configurations being used for
fiber optics are surface emitters (also called
Burrus or front emitters) and edge emitters
Schematic (not to scale) of a high-
radiance surface-emitting LED
• In the surface emitter, the plane of the active light-
emitting region is oriented perpendicularly to the
axis of the fiber
• In this configuration, a well is etched through the
substrate of the device, into which a fiber is then
cemented in order to accept the emitted light.
• The emission pattern is essentially isotropic with a
120° half-power beam width.
• This isotropic pattern from such a surface emitter
is called a lambertian pattern.
edge-emitting double-heterojunction
LED
• The edge emitter consists of an active junction
region, which is the source of the incoherent light,
and two guiding layers.
• The guiding layers both have a refractive index
lower than that of the active region but higher
than the index of the surrounding material.
• This structure forms a waveguide channel that
directs the optical radiation toward the fiber core.
• To match the typical fiber-core diameters (50–100
mm), the contact stripes for the edge emitter are
50–70 mm wide.
• Lengths of the active regions usually range
from 100 to 150 mm.
• The emission pattern of the edge emitter is
more directional than that of the surface
emitter.
 Light source materials
• The semiconductor material that is used for the
active layer of an optical source must have a direct
bandgap.
• Only in direct-bandgap material is the radiative
recombination sufficiently high to produce an
adequate level of optical emission.
• The most important of these compounds are made
from III-V materials. That is, the compounds
consist of selections from a group III element (e.g.,
Al, Ga, or In) and a group V element (e.g., P, As,
or Sb).
• For operation in the 800-to-900-nm
spectrum, the principal material used is the
ternary alloy Ga1–x Alx As
 QUANTUM EFFICIENCY AND LED
POWER
• In general, the excess carrier density decays
exponentially with time according to the relation

where n0 is the initial injected excess electron

density and the time constant is the carrier
lifetime
The rate equation for carrier recombination in an
LED can be written as

The equilibrium condition is found by setting

equation equal to zero, yielding

This relationship gives the steady-state electron density

in the active region when a constant current is flowing
through it.
 The internal quantum efficiency in the active
region is the fraction of the electron–hole pairs
that recombine radiatively.

the radiative recombination lifetime is

nonradiative recombination lifetime

Thus the internal quantum efficiency can be

expressed as

where the bulk recombination lifetime

•Not all internally generated photons will exit
the device.
•To find the emitted power, one needs to consider
the external quantum efficiency
•This is defined as the ratio of the photons
emitted from the LED to the number of
internally generated photons.
 LASER DIODES (Light amplification by
stimulated emission of radiation)
• Used for bandwidth requirement of greater than
200 MHz
• Advantages:
– Fast response time (< 1 ns).
– Narrow spectral width (~2 nm).
– High power output (tens to hundreds of mW).
– Efficient coupling into optical fibers with small
cores.
• Laser action is the result of three key
processes: photon absorption, spontaneous
emission, and stimulated emission.
• These three processes are represented by the
simple two-energy-level diagrams. where E1 is the
ground-state energy and E2 is the excited-state
energy.
• According to Planck’s law, a transition between
these two states involves the absorption or
emission of a photon of energy hv12 = E2 – E1.
• Normally, the system is in the ground state.
• When a photon of energy hv12 impinges on the
system, an electron in state E1 can absorb the
photon energy and be excited to state E2, as shown
• Since this is an unstable state, the electron will
shortly return to the ground state, thereby
emitting a photon of energy hv12.
• This occurs without any external stimulation and
is called spontaneous emission
• if a photon of energy hv12 impinges on the system
while the electron is still in its excited state, the
electron is immediately stimulated to drop to the
ground state and give off a photon of energy hv12.
• This emitted photon is in phase with the incident
photon, and the resultant emission is known as
stimulated emission.
• Stimulated emission will exceed absorption only if
the population of the excited states is greater than
that of the ground state. This condition is known
as population inversion.
• Two parallel, partially reflecting mirrors form the
Fabry-Perot cavity, providing strong optical
feedback along the cavity length.
• The mirrors convert the device into an oscillator
by compensating for optical losses at resonant
frequencies.
• Roughened cavity edges minimize lateral
emissions.
• Light reflects within the cavity, with constructive
interference at wavelengths that are integer
multiples of the cavity length (resonant
frequencies)
• Resonant wavelengths, called longitudinal modes,
amplify after multiple trips through the cavity.
 Distributed-feedback (DFB) laser
• Optical feedback achieved through Bragg reflectors
or refractive index variations (distributed-feedback
corrugations).
• No cleaved facets required, unlike Fabry-Perot
lasers.
• Modes in Laser Cavities:
• Modes are patterns of electric and magnetic fields within
the cavity.
• Types of Modes:
– Longitudinal Modes: Determined by cavity length L;
influence the frequency spectrum.
– Lateral Modes: Depend on cavity width and sidewall
quality; affect lateral beam profile.
– Transverse Modes: Define beam profile perpendicular
to the pn junction; influence radiation pattern and
threshold current density.
• Lasing Conditions:
• Population Inversion: Necessary for light amplification.
• Optical Gain: Must exceed total losses (absorption and
mirror losses) for lasing.
• Feedback Mechanism: Provided by partially reflecting
mirrors, amplifying selected modes during each round trip
in the cavity.
 Laser Diode Rate Equations
• For a pn junction with a carrier-confinement
region of depth d, the rate equations are given by
• which governs the number of electrons n.
• Here, C is a coefficient describing the strength
of the optical absorption and emission
interactions,
• Rsp is the rate of spontaneous emission into the
lasing mode (which is much smaller than the
total spontaneous-emission rate),
• tph is the photon lifetime, tsp is the
spontaneous recombination lifetime, and J is
the injection-current density.
 External Quantum Efficiency

The external differential quantum efficiency next is

defined as the number of photons emitted per
radiative electron–hole pair recombination above
threshold.
Resonant Frequencies
 Physical Principles of Photodiodes
• The pin Photodetector:
• PIN Photodiode Structure:
• Consists of p, intrinsic (i), and n regions.
• The intrinsic region is lightly n-doped, and
under reverse bias, it becomes fully depleted of
carriers.
• Photon Absorption: Incident optical power ​
penetrates into the semiconductor and is
absorbed exponentially:

• where αs​ is the photon absorption coefficient.

• Photon energy excites electrons from the
valence band to the conduction band,
generating electron-hole pairs (called
photocarriers).
• The electric field in the depletion region
separates electron-hole pairs, resulting in
current flow across a reverse-biased
junction, termed photocurrent.
• Diffusion Lengths (Ln,Lp​) are the average
distances electrons/holes travel before
recombining.
• Lifetime (tn, tp​) relates to recombination
and depends on material properties.
Quantum Efficiency:

Light is absorbed mostly in the depletion region,

leading to photocurrent.
• Quantum Efficiency depends on wavelength and
defines how many electron-hole pairs are generated
per absorbed photon.
• Typical efficiency ranges from 30–95% depending
on design factors (thickness, material, wavelength).
• Responsivity (R): R=Ip/P⋅hv/q= η⋅q/hν​
• Defines the photocurrent generated per unit
of optical power.
• Responsivity decreases at wavelengths
longer than the cutoff wavelength due to
insufficient photon energy.
Cutoff Wavelength (λc):Determined by the
bandgap energy Eg of the photodiode's
semiconductor.
• Quantum Efficiency vs. Speed:
– A thicker depletion region increases quantum
efficiency (more light absorbed) but slows response
time due to longer drift times.
• Applications: Used in fiber optic
communication, solar cells, light sensors, and
imaging technologies.
• Responsivity Trends: Linear over a constant
power level at a fixed wavelength but varies
with material properties and wavelength.
• Efficiency drops for wavelengths beyond the
cutoff.
Avalanche Photodiodes
• APDs internally multiply primary photocurrent,
enhancing receiver sensitivity by reducing thermal
noise impact.
• Key Mechanism:
• Impact Ionization: High electric field accelerates
carriers, causing ionization and multiplication
(avalanche effect).
• Below breakdown voltage: Finite carriers.
• Above breakdown voltage: Potentially infinite
carriers.
• Reverse bias widens depletion layer.
• Full depletion mode allows light absorption in p-
region.
• Carrier multiplication occurs in high-field pn+
junction.
• Ionization Rate: Number of e-hole pairs created
per unit distance.
• Electron and hole rates differ (ratio k = β/α
impacts noise, gain-bandwidth).
• Multiplication Factor (M):M=Ip/​IM​​, where IM is
the average value of the total multiplied output
current and Ip is the primary unmultiplied
photocurrent
• Responsivity Formula:the performance of an APD
is characterized by its responsivity RAPD, which
is given by

where R is the unity gain responsivity