UNIT -II
Fibre Optics Physics
Introduction
• A light beam acting as a carrier wave is capable of
carrying more information because of its high frequency.
• Radio waves – 106 Hz
• Microwaves – 1010 Hz
• Light waves – 1015 Hz
An Efficient communication system the light which carries
the information requires s guiding media known as optical
fibers. Thus fiber optics it is branch of physics which deals
with the transmission and reception of light waves using
optical fibers, which acts as a guiding media.
Optical Fiber
• It is made up of transparent dielectrics (SiO2), glass or
plastics).An Optical fiber consists of a central core glass
(50 micro meter dia) surrounded by a cladding (125-200
micro meter) which is of slightly lower refractive index
than core.
• The cladding is enclosed by strength members and
polyurethane jacket, which acts as protective skin for core
and cladding.
• The protective layer is used so has to make the optical
cable to withstand for hard pulling, bending, sketching,
rolling etc. the layers also traps the escaping light from the
core.
Features of Optical Fibers
• It is light in weight
• It is smaller in size and is flexible, so that it can bend to
any position
• It is non-conductive, non radiative and non inductive
• It has high bandwidth and low loss
• There is no short circuiting as in metal wires
• There is no internal noise / cross talks
• It can withstand to any range of temperature and moisture
condition
• There is no need to ground and hence no voltage problem
occurs
Propagation of optical signal through
optical fibers
• The process of propagation of light (OS) is simple,
because once the light enters the Fibers, the rays do not
encounter any new surfaces, but repeatedly they hit the
same surface. The reason of confining the light beam
inside the Fibers is the total internal reflection.
• Even for a bent fiber, the light guidance takes place by
multiple total internal reflection all over the length of the
fiber
Principle
• The principle of optical fiber communication is Total
Internal Reflection. (diamond – 2.42)
• The phenomenon of Total Internal Reflection takes
place when it satisfies the following two conditions
• Condition -1 : Light should travel from denser medium to
rarer medium.
n 1 > n2
• n1 – refractive index of core
• n2 – refractive index of cladding
• Condition -2: The angle of incident on core should be
greater than the critical angle.
i > c
i – angle of incident
c – critical angle
Propagation phenomenon
• Let the light ray traverses from denser medium to rarer
medium.
Case (i) : when i < c the ray is refracted into the rarer
medium
• Case (ii): when i = c the ray traverses along the
interface. So that the angle of refraction is 90°. This angle
c is called critical angle.
• Case (iii): when i > c the ray is totally reflected back into
the denser medium itself as shown in fig from Snell’s Law
(the maximum angle for Total Internal Reflection c )
n1 sin c = n2 sin 90 °
sin c = n2 / n1
Since sin 90°=1
c = sin -1 [n2 / n1 ]
Denser & Rarer Mediums
• Refractive Index: the ratio of the velocity of light in a
vacuum to its velocity in a specification medium.
• Refractive index - n=c/v
• C – speed of light when in vacuum
• V – speed of light when in the medium
• compare refractive index of 2 medium
• Those medium which have higher refractive index are
called optically denser mediums
• Those medium which have a lower refractive index are
called optically rarer mediums
• Refractive index of Air is 1.0003 and Water is 1.33
Acceptance Angle
• The acceptance angle is the maximum angle at or below
which light can suffer Total Internal Reflection is called as
acceptance angle. The cone is referred as acceptance
cone.
Numerical Aperture (NA)
• It is define as the sine of the acceptance angle of the
fibre.
NA= sin im
=
NA= sin im =
NA increases with increases in acceptance angle – im
im-wave guide acceptance angle
Note: the angle im is unique only for a particular fiberit differs from fiber
to fiber. It depends on the material and the core diameter.
Types of Optical Fibres
• Optical fibers are classified into 3 major categories based
on
• Material
• Number of modes (or) Microstructured optical fibers and
• Refractive index profile
Glass and Plastic Fibers
• Based on materials in which the fibers are made it is
classified into two types as follows:
• Glass Fibers: If the fibers are made up of mixture of metal
oxides and silica glasses.
• Examples: the glass Fibers can be made by any one of
the following combinations of core and cladding
• (i) core: SiO2 cladding: P2O3 – SiO2
• (ii) core: GeO2 cladding: SiO2
Plastic Fibers
• If the Fibers are made up of plastics which can be handle
without any care due to its toughness and durability it is
called plastic fiber.
• Examples: the plastic fibers are made by any one of the
following combinations of core and cladding.
• (i) core: Polymethyl methacrylate cladding: co-polymer
• (ii) core : Polystyrene cladding: Methyl methacrylate
Single and Multimode Fibers
• Mode is the one which describes the nature of
propagation of electromagnetic waves in a wave guide.
• Based on the modes of propagation the fibers are
classified into two types.
• (i) Single mode fibers
• (ii) Multi mode fibers
Single mode fibers
• In general the single mode fibers are step index fibers.
These type of fibers are made from doped silica. It has a
very small core diameter so that it can allow only one
mode of propagation and hence called single mode fibers.
• The cladding diameter must be very large compared to
the core diameter. Thus in the case of a single mode fiber
the optical loss is very much reduced. The structure of a
single mode fiber is shown in fig
• Structure:
• Core diameter : 5 – 10 μm
• Cladding diameter : Generally around 125 μm
• Protective layer : 250 to 1000 μm
• Numerical Aperture : 0.08 to 0.10
• Band width : More than 50 MHz km
Application
• Because of its high band width they are used in long haul
communication systems.
Multi Mode Fibers
• The multimode fibers are useful in manufacturing both for
the step index and graded index fibers. the multimode
fibers are made by multi-component glass component
such as Glass-clad Glass, Silica-clad Silica, doped silica
etc. Here the core diameter is very large compared to
single mode fibers, so that it can allow many modes to
propagate through it and hence called as multi-mode
fibers. The cladding diameter is also large than the
diameter of the single mode fibers. The structure of the
multimode fibers
• Structure:
• Core diameter : 50 – 350 μm
• Cladding diameter : 125 - 500 μm
• Protective layer : 250 to 1100 μm
• Numerical Aperture : 0.12 - 0.5
• Band width : Less than 50 MHz km
Application
• Because of its less band width it is very useful in short
haul communication systems.
Step Index and Graded Index (GRIN) Fibers
• Based on the variation in the refractive index of the core
and the cladding, the fibers are classified into two types
• (i) Step index fiber
• (ii) Graded index fiber
STEP INDEX FIBER
Here the refractive indices of air, cladding and core varies by step by
step and hence it is called as step index fiber
In step index fiber we have both single mode and multi-mode fibers
In both the fibers the variation in refractive indices will be in step by
step. Since a single mode fiber has less dispersion than multimode,
the single mode step index fiber also has low intermodal dispersion
compared to multimode step index fiber.
Graded index fiber (GRIN fiber)
• Here the refractive index of the core varies radially from
the axis of the fiber. The refractive index of the core is
maximum along the fiber axis and it gradually decreases.
Thus it is called as graded index fiber. Here the refractive
index becomes minimum at the core-cladding interface.
• In general the graded index fibers will be of multimode
system. The multimode graded index fiber has very less
intermodal dispersion compared to multimode step index
fiber.
Propagation of light in GRIN fiber
Propagation of light in GRIN fiber
• Let na, nb, nc, nd etc. be the refractive index of different
layers in the graded index fiber with na > nb > nc > nd etc.
then the propagation of light through the graded index
fiber is shown in fig.
• Here since na > nb the ray gets refracted. Similarly since nb
> nc the ray gets refracted. In a similar manner, due to
decrease in refractive index the ray get gradually curved
towards the upwards direction and at one place, where it
satisfies the condition for total internal reflection, (i > c) it
is totally internally reflected.
• The reflected ray travels back towards the core axis (but
not crosses it) and without crossing the fiber axis, it is
reflected towards downwards direction and again gets
totally internally reflected and passes towards upward
direction. In this manner the ray propagates inside the
fiber in a helical (or) spiral manner.
Optical Source
• The principal light sources used for fiber optic
communications is heterojunction structures, semi
conductor laser diodes and light emitting diodes. The
hetero-junction consists of two adjoining semi-conducting
materials with different band gap energies. These devices
are suitable for fiber transmission systems, because they
have adequate power output for a wide range of
applications. Varying input current to the device can
directly modulate their optical power output. They have
high efficiency and their dimensional characteristics are
compatible with those of the optical fibers.
• The light emitting regions of both light emitting diodes and
laser diodes consists of P-N junction constructed of direct
band gap semiconductor materials. When the junction is
forward biased, electrons and holes are injected into the P
and N regions respectively. These injected minority
carriers can recombine either radiatively, in which case a
photon of energy hv is emitted; or non-radiatively, where
upon the recombination energy is dissipated in the form of
heat. This P-N junction is known as the active or
recombination region.
• A major difference between light emitting diodes and the
Laser diodes is that, the optical output from a light
emitting diodes is incoherent, whereas that from a laser
diode is coherent. In a coherent source the optical energy
is produced in an optical resonant cavity. The optical
energy released from this cavity has spatial and temporal
coherence, which means it is highly monochromatic and
the output beam is highly directional.
Light emitting diodes:
• Optical communication system requires bit rates less than
approximately 50 μb / second.
• Semiconductor light emitting diodes are usually the best
light sources.
• Light emitting diodes require less complex drive
circulatory than Laser diodes.
• Since no thermal or optical stabilization circuits are
needed and these can be fabricate less expensively with
higher yields.
Laser diodes:
• For optical fiber systems the laser sources used almost are
semiconductor laser diodes. For optical fiber communication system
requiring bandwidths greater than approximately 50 MHz, the
semiconductor injection laser diodes are preferred over the light emitting
diodes. Laser diodes typically have response time less than one nano-
second, have optical bandwidth of 2 nm or less and in general are
capable of coupling several milliwatt of useful luminescent power into
optical fibers with small cores and small numerical apertures. Virtually all
laser diodes used at present are multi layered heterojunction devices.
Stimulated emission in semiconductor lasers arises from optical
transmissions between distribution of energy states in the valence band
and covalent band. Lasing is the condition at which the light
amplification becomes possible in the Laser diode. The requirement for
lasing is that a population inversion be achieved.
THE FIBER OPTIC COMMUNICATION
SYSTEM
• Figure shows the schematic diagram of a fiber optic
communication system. The major components of an
optical fiber communication system are
i. The optical transmitter
ii. The optical fiber
iii. The optical receiver
PRINCIPLE:
Basically, a fiber optic system converts an electrical signal
to an infrared light signal. This signal is transmitted through
an optical fiber. At the end of the optical fiber, it is
reconverted into an electric signal
Working:
1. Encoder encodes the information in the binary
sequence zeros and ones.
a. Encoder is an electric circuit where in the information is
encoded into binary sequences of zeros and one. In the light
wave transmitter each ‘one’ corresponds to an electrical
pulse and ‘zero’ corresponds to an absence of a pulse.
These electrical pulses are used to turn a light source on and
off very rapidly. The driver converts the incoming electrical
signal into a form that will operate with the light source.
2. These electrical pulses are used to turn a light source
on and off rapidly.
3. The optical fiber acts as a wave guide and transmits
the optical pulses towards the receiver, by the principle of
total internal reflection.
4. The light detector receives the optical pulses and
converts them into electrical pulses. These signals are
amplified by the amplifier.
5. The amplified signals are decoded by the decoder.
ADVANTAGES:
Extremely wide bandwidth
Optical frequencies are very large (1015 Hz) as compared
to radio frequencies (106Hz) and microwave frequencies
(1010 Hz). The rate at which information can be transmitted is
directly related to signal frequency. Therefore, a transmission
system that operates at the frequency of light can theoretically
transmit information at a higher rate than systems that operate
at radio frequencies or microwave frequencies.
Lack of cross talk between parallel fibers.
There is virtually no signal leakage from fibers. Hence, cross-
talks between neighboring fibers are almost absent. This is
quite frequent in conventional metallic system
Immunity to inductive interference
Since optical fibers are not metallic, they do not pick up
electromagnetic waves. The result is noise free
transmission i.e., fiber optic cables are immune to
interference caused by lighting or other electromagnetic
equipment
Smaller diameter and light weight cable
Optical fibers, because of their light weight and
flexibility, can be handled more easily than copper cables.
Signal security
The transmitted signal through the fibers does not
radiate. Further the signal cannot be tapped from a fiber in
an easy manner. Therefore, optical fiber communication
provides a hundred percent signal security hence this
system is highly suited to secure communications in
defence communication networks.
• [Link]
plications/
