Unit-2

Optical Fibers: Structures

 Basic Optical Laws and Definitions

• Refractive index of a medium is defined as:

c velocity of light (EM wave) in vacuum

n 
v velocity of light (EM wave) in medium
• Typical values of n are 1.00 for air, 1.33 for water, 1.50 for glass, and 2.42 for
diamond.

• The concepts of reflection and refraction can be interpreted most easily by

considering the behavior of light rays in a dielectric material.

• When a light ray encounters a boundary separating two different media, part of the
ray is reflected back into the first medium and remainder is bent or refracted as it
enters the second material.

• The bending or refraction of the light ray at the interface is a result of the
difference in speed of light in two materials that have different refractive indices.
 Laws of Reflection & Refraction

Snell’s law of refraction:

n1 sin 1  n 2 sin  2
Optical Fiber communications, 3rd ed.,G.Keiser,McGrawHill, 2000
 Total internal reflection, Critical angle
Transmitted
(refracted) light
kt  2  90 
2 n2
n 1 > n2
1
ki
1 kr c
Critical angle
1   c TIR
Incident Reflected
light light
n2
(a) sin  c  (b) (c)
n1
(a)Light wave travelling in a more dense medium strikes a less dense medium (n1>n2). Depending on
the incidence angle with respect to c , which is determined by the ratio of the refractive
indices, the wave may be transmitted (refracted) or reflected. (a)1   c (b) 1   c (c)
1   c and total internal reflection (TIR).

n2
sin  c 
n1
 Phase shift due to TIR
• The totally reflected wave experiences a phase shift however
which is given by:

N n 2 cos 2  1  1 p n n 2 cos 2  1  1
tan  ; tan 
2 n sin  1 2 sin  1
n1
n
n2

• Where (p,N) refer to the electric field components parallel or

normal to the plane of incidence respectively.
 Optical Fibers: Modes and Configurations

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.

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

The light or the optical signals are guided through the silica glass fibers by
total internal reflection.

A typical glass fiber consists of a central core glass (50 mm) surrounded by a
cladding made of a glass of slightly lower refractive index than the core’s
refractive index.

Cladding is necessary to provide proper light guidance i.e. to retain the light
energy within the core as well as to provide high mechanical strength and
safety to the core from scratches.
 Optical Fibers: Structure

n1 n2
Optical Fiber communications, 3rd ed.,G.Keiser,McGrawHill, 2000

n1  n2
 Step index fiber
In the step index fiber, the refractive index of the core is uniform throughout
and undergoes an abrupt or step change at the core cladding boundary.

The light rays propagating through the fiber are in the form of meridional
rays which will cross the fiber axis during every reflection at the core cladding
boundary and are propagating in a zig-zag manner as shown in figure below
 Graded index fiber
In the graded index fiber, the refractive index of the core is made to vary in the
parabolic manner such that the maximum value of refractive index is at the
centre of the core.

The light rays propagating through it are in the form of skew rays or helical
rays which will not cross the fiber axis at any time and are propagating around
the fiber axis in a helical (or) spiral manner as shown in figure below
Different Structures of Optical Fiber

Optical Fiber communications, 3rd ed.,G.Keiser,McGrawHill, 2000

 Single mode fibers
In a single mode fiber, only one mode(Propagation path) can propagate
through the fiber . Normally the number of modes propagating through the
fiber is proportional to its V-number where
 Single mode fibers
In the case of a single mode fiber, V-number <=2.405.

 The single mode fiber has a smaller core diameter (10 mm) and the
difference between the refractive indices of the core and the cladding is very
small.

Fabrication of single mode fibers is very difficult and so the fiber is expensive.

The launching of light into single mode fibers is also difficult.

Generally in the single mode fibers, the transmission loss and dispersion or
degradation of the signal are very small.

 So the single mode fibers are very useful in long distance communication.
 Multi mode fibers
Multimode fibers allow a large number of modes (Propagation path) for the
light raystraveling through it.

Here the V-number is greater than 2.405.

Total number of modes ‘N’ propagating through a given multimode step

index fiber is given by

where d is the diameter of the core of the fiber. For a multimode graded index
fiber having parabolic refractive index profile core,
 Multi mode fibers
The core diameter is generally larger than in the single mode fiber.

In the case of multimode graded index fiber, signal distortion is very low
because of self-focusing effects.

 Here the light rays travel at different speeds in different paths of the fiber
because of the parabolic variation of refractive index of the core.

Launching of light into the fiber and fabrication of the fiber are easy.

 These fibers are generally used in local area networks and applications
where high power must be transmitted.
Intermodal Dispersion
When an optical pulse is launched into a fiber, the optical power in the fiber
is distributed over all the modes of the fiber.

Each of the mode that propagates 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 different times.

Thus causing the pulse to spreading out in time as it travels.This effect is

called as Intermodal Dispersion.

The dispersion leads to the distortion (or) degradation of the signal quality
at the output end due to overlapping of the pulses.