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Bending Losses ppt

The document discusses bending losses in optical fibers, which occur due to both macroscopic and microscopic bends. Macroscopic bends lead to increased losses as the radius of curvature decreases, while microscopic bends cause light to leak due to deviations in the angle of incidence at the core-cladding interface. The analysis of these losses is essential for understanding the performance of optical fibers in various applications.

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27 views

Bending Losses ppt

The document discusses bending losses in optical fibers, which occur due to both macroscopic and microscopic bends. Macroscopic bends lead to increased losses as the radius of curvature decreases, while microscopic bends cause light to leak due to deviations in the angle of incidence at the core-cladding interface. The analysis of these losses is essential for understanding the performance of optical fibers in various applications.

Uploaded by

chandushivamurthy4
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Bending Losses

BY
SHIVAPRASAD K M
Bending Losses

Radiation Losses occur whenever an optical fiber


undergoes a bend of finite radius of curvature.
It can be subjected to two types of curvatures:-
1. Macroscopic bends
2. Micriscopic bends
1. Macroscopic Bends
 Macroscopic bends having radii that are large compared with the
fiber diameter, such as those that occur when a fiber cable turns a
corner.
 Forslight bends the excess loss is extremely small and is essentially
unobservable.
 As the radius of curvature decreases, the loss increases exponentially
until at a certain critical radius the curvature loss becomes
observable.
 Ifthe bend radius is made a bit smaller once this threshold point has
been reached, the losses suddenly become extremely large.
The loss mechanism due to bending loss can be well
understood using modal propogation model
 As we have seen, the light inside a fiber
propagates in the form of modes. The modal
fields decay inside the cladding away from
the core cladding interface. Theoretically the
field in the cladding is finite no matter how
far away we are from the core-cladding
interface. Now look at the amplitude and
phase distribution for the fibers which are
straight and which are bent over an circular
arc as shown in Fig.
 It can be noted that for the straight the phase
fronts are parallel and each point on the phase
front travels with the same phase velocity
Continued…..
• However, as soon the fiber is bent (no matter
how gently) the phase fronts are no parallel.
• The phase fronts move like a fan pivoted to the
center of curvature of the bent fiber (see Fig.).
Every point on the phase front consequently
does not move with same velocity. The velocity
increases as we move radially outwards the
velocity of the phase front increases.
• Very quickly we reach to a distance xc from the
fibre wherw the velocity tries to become greater
than the velocity of light in the cladding
medium.
• Since the velocity of energy cannot be greater
than the velocity of light, the energy associated
with the modal field beyond xc gets detached
from the mode and radiates away, this is called
2.Microscopic bends
While commissioning the optical fibre is subjected to micro-bending as
shown in Fig.
Continued……
 The analysis of micro-bends is a rather complex task. However, just for
basic understanding of how the loss takes place due to micro-bending,
we use following arguments.
 In a fiber without micro-bends the light is guided by total internal
reflection (ITR) at the core-cladding boundary. The rays which are
guided inside the fiber has incident angle greater than the critical angle
at the core-cladding interface. In the presence of microbends however,
the direction of the local normal to the core-cladding interface deviates
and therefore the rays may not have angle of incidence greater than the
critical angle and consequently will be leaked out.
 A part of the propagating optical energy therefore leaks out due to
micro-bends.
 Depending upon the roughness of the surface through which the fiber
passes, the micro bending loss varies.

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