School of Engineering

Department of Electrical and Computer

Engineering
Chapter I
Introduction to Optical communication
Optics and Optical Communication
(ECEG-5311)
 Outline

 Introduction to Optical Communications

o Evolution of Communication System
o Advantage and Disadvantages
o Components of Optical Communication
System
o Generations of Light-wave System

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 Evolution of Communication System
……………………………1
 A communication system transmits information from one place to another,
whether separated by a few kilo-meters or by transoceanic distances.
 The development of worldwide telephone networks during the twentieth
century led to many advances in the design of electrical communication
systems beginning from Telegraph towards Light wave system.
 Figure 1.1 shows how the BL product has increased through technological
advances during the last century and a half. (BL is a commonly used figure
of merit for communication systems stands for the bit rate–distance
product, where B is the bit rate and L is the repeater spacing).
 Fiber-optic communication is a method of transmitting information from
one place to another by sending light through an optical fiber.
 Optical communication systems use high carrier frequencies (~100 THz) in
the visible or near-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum.

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 Evolution of Communication
System……………………………..2

Figure 1.1: Increase in bit rate–distance product BL during the period 1850–2000
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 Evolution of Communication System
…………………………..3
 They are sometimes called lightwave systems to distinguish them from
microwave systems, whose carrier frequency is typically smaller by five orders
of magnitude (~1GHz).
 The need for high bandwidth to satisfy the growing need for long distance
communication all over the word, Optical fiber communication system gets
more emphasis and dominating the others.

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Figure 1.2: Electromagnetic Spectrum
 Advantages and
Disadvantages……………………………………..1
Advantages
Much Higher Bandwidth (Gbps): Thousands of channels can be
multiplexed together over one strand of fiber
Immunity to Noise: Immune to electromagnetic interference (EMI).
Safety: Doesn’t transmit electrical signals, making it safe in
environments like a gas pipeline.
High Security: Impossible to “tap into.”
Less Loss: Repeaters can be spaced 75 miles apart (fibers can be made
to have only 0.2 dB/km of attenuation).
Reliability: More strong than copper in extreme environmental
conditions.
Size: Lighter and more compact than copper.
Flexibility: Unlike impure, brittle glass, fiber is physically very flexible.

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 Advantages and
Disadvantages……………………………………..2

Disadvantages
 The cost of interfacing equipment necessary to convert electrical
signals to optical signals. (optical transmitters, receivers)
 Splicing fiber optic cable is also more difficult.
Expensive over short distance.
Requires highly skilled installers.
adding additional nodes is difficult

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 Components of Optical Communication
System………………1
 It consists of a transmitter, a communication channel, and a receiver,
the three elements common to all communication systems.
 Figure 1.3 shows a block diagram of an optical communication system.

Figure 1.3: Block diagram of an optical communication system

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 Components of Optical Communication
System………………2
 Optical communication systems can be classified into two broad
categories: guided and unguided.
Guided lightwave system
 It is a system in which the optical beam emitted by the transmitter remains
spatially confined.
 it is realized in practice by using optical fibers.
 Since all guided optical communication systems currently use optical fibers,
the commonly used term for them is fiber-optic communication systems.
Unguided optical communication systems
 It is a system in which the optical beam emitted by the transmitter spreads in
space, similar to the spreading of microwaves.
 Unguided optical systems are less suitable for broadcasting applications than
microwave systems because optical beams spread mainly in the forward
direction (as a result of their short wavelength).
 Their use generally requires accurate pointing between the transmitter and the
receiver.

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 Generations of Light-wave
System………………………………….1

 The research phase of fiber-optic communication systems started around

1975.
 Figure 1.4 shows the increase in the BL product over this time period as
quantified through various laboratory experiments. The straight line
corresponds to a doubling of the BL product every year.

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 Generations of Light-wave
System………………………………….2
First generation
 Operates near 0.8 μm and used GaAs semiconductor lasers.
 Uses a bit rate of 45 Mb/s and allowed repeater spacing of up to 10 km.
 It operates at the wavelength region near 1.3 μm, where fiber loss is below 1
dB/km.
 Optical fibers exhibit minimum dispersion in this wavelength region.

Second-generation
 Operate at bit rates of up to 1.7 Gb/s with a repeater spacing of about 50 km.
 The repeater spacing of the second-generation lightwave systems was limited by
the fiber losses at the operating wavelength of 1.3 μm (typically 0.5 dB/km).
Third-generation
 Operates at 2.5 Gb/s with repeaters separation from 60-70km became available
commercially in 1990.
 It operates at 1.55 μm and was considerably delayed by large fiber dispersion near
1.55 μm.
 Its best performance is achieved using dispersion-shifted fibers in combination
with lasers oscillating in a single longitudinal mode.
 Such systems are capable of operating at a bit rate of up to 10 Gb/s.
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 Generations of Light-wave
System………………………………….3

Fourth generation
 makes use of optical amplification for increasing the repeater
spacing and of wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) for
increasing the bit rate.
 The WDM technique led to lightwave systems operating at a bit rate
of 10 Tb/s.
 In most WDM systems, fiber losses are compensated periodically
using erbium-doped fiber amplifiers spaced 60–80 km apart.
Fifth generation
 Fiber-optic communication systems is concerned with extending the
wavelength range over which a WDM system can operate
simultaneously.
 The conventional wavelength window, known as the C band, covers
the wavelength range 1.53–1.57μm.

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