Unit-III

Fiber Optics
 Introduction
 Fiber optics, or optical fiber, refers to the technology that transmits
information as light pulses along a glass or plastic fiber.

 Fibers are used instead of metal wires because signals travel along
them with less loss of signals

 The term was coined by Indian-American physicist Narinder Singh

Kapany and called ae 'Father of Fiber Optics‘.

 The fibre optical cable uses the application of total internal reflection of
light.

 Silica or multi-component glass are used for the fabrication of optical

fibres.
 Parts of Fiber Optics
Fiber Optic Cable consists of four parts.
• Core
• Cladding
• Jacket

Core. The core of a fiber cable is a cylinder of plastic that

runs all along the fiber cable’s length, and offers protection
by cladding. The diameter of the core depends on the
application used. Due to internal reflection, the light
travelling within the core reflects from the core, the cladding
boundary. The core cross section needs to be a circular
one for most of the applications.
Cladding: Cladding is an outer optical material that
protects the core. The main function of the cladding is that
it reflects the light back into the core. When light enters
through the core (dense material) into the cladding(less
dense material), it changes its angle, and then reflects back
to the core
JACKET: Fiber optic cable’s jackets are available in
different colors that can easily make us recognize the exact
color of the cable we are dealing with. The color yellow
clearly signifies a single mode cable, and orange color
indicates multimode.
 Applications of Optical Fiber
Medical industry:
Because of its extremely thin and flexible nature, it is used in various instruments
to view internal body parts by inserting into hollow spaces in the body. It is used as
lasers during surgeries, endoscopy, microscopy and biomedical research.

Communication and Networking

In the communication system, telecommunication has major uses of optical fibre
cables for transmitting and receiving purposes. It is used in various networking
fields and even increases the speed and accuracy of the transmission data.
Compared to copper wires, fibre optics cables are lighter, more flexible and carry
more data.

Broadcasting
These cables are used to transmit high-definition television signals which have
greater bandwidth and speed. Optical Fibre is cheaper compared to the same
quantity of copper wires. Broadcasting companies use optical fibres for wiring
HDTV, CATV, video-on-demand and many applications.
 Reflection of Light
Reflection of light is the process of bouncing back light rays when it
strikes the smooth and shiny reflecting surface. It is due to the reflection
of light we are able to see ourselves in the Plane mirror.

1. The angle of the reflected ray is equal to the

angle of the incident ray, with respect to the
normal to the surface that is to a line
perpendicular to the surface at the point of
contact.
Incident angle = Reflected Angle
2.The reflected ray is always in the plane defined
by the incident ray and the normal to the surface
at the point of contact of the incident ray.

Example
 Refraction of Light
Refraction is the bending of a wave when it passes from one medium to another.
The bending is caused due to the differences in density between the two
substances.

Laws of refraction state that:

1) The incident ray refracted ray, and the

normal to the interface of two media at the
point of incidence all lie on the same plane.

2) The ratio of the sine of the angle of incidence to the sine

of the angle of refraction is a constant. This is also known
as Snell’s law of refraction.

Important formula

This is Snell’s Law

Example
 Refractive Index
The refractive index (or refraction index) of an optical medium is a dimensionless
quantity that gives the indication of the light bending ability of that medium.

n = Refractive index
c = Speed of light = 3 × 108 m/s
v= velocity of light in medium
Reason of change of speed: The speed of light in a medium depends on the
properties of the medium. In electromagnetic waves, the speed is dependent on
the optical density of the medium. An optical density is the tendency of the
atoms in a material to restore the absorbed electromagnetic energy. The
more optically dense material is, the slower the speed of light. One such
indicator of the optical density of a medium is the refractive index.

Refractive index for: air=1.0003; water=1.333; crown glass=1.517; and

diamond, 2.417.
 Numerical
Q1)What is the refractive index of the medium in which the speed of light is
1.5 × 108 m/s?
Sol: The refractive index of the medium can be calculated using the formula:

c = Speed of light = 3 × 108 m/s

n = 3 × 108 m/s/1.5 × 108 m/s = 2

The refractive index of the medium is 2.

Q2) Refractive index of glass is 1.5. If the speed of light in vacuum

is 3 X 108 m/s, find velocity of light in medium. Ans: 2 X 10^8 m/s
 Types of Optical fibers
Depending on the refractive indices of optical fibers:
1) Step-index fiber : In these, the refractive index of the core is constant
and undergoes an abrupt change at the interface with the cladding.

2) Graded-index fiber: The refractive index of the core varies in a radial

manner from the center. The fiber is densest at the core and becomes
rarer towards the edge of the core.
 Total Internal Reflection (TIR)
 Total Internal Reflection (TIR) is basically a phenomenon where light rays
travel from a more optically denser medium to a less optically denser medium
and gets reflected back into the more optically denser medium.
 TIR is only possible if the incident angle is greater than critical angle
 Numerical
Q1. An optical fibre made up the glass with refractive index n1 = 1.5 which is
surrounded by another glass of refractive index n2. Find the refractive index
n2 of the cladding such that the critical angle between the two cladding is
80°.
Sol Critical angle, θ(c) = 80°
Refractive index, n1 = 1.5
Refractive index n2 = ?
Using the below formula, we can calculate n2:

n2=1.5 Sin 80° Sin 80°= 0.9848

n2=1.48 Ans
 Optical Fiber as a Dielectric Wave Guide
 Waveguides are employed in various applications for propagating
electromagnetic energy in a desired direction in space from one point to
another.

 The circular dielectric waveguide or fiber optic has

an internal core that has a higher index of refraction
than the cladding. At a certain diameter there is an
angle that is less than the critical angle so there is
total internal reflection.
Example
 Acceptance angle
 It is defined as the maximum angle of a ray (against the fiber axis)
hitting the fiber core which allows the incident light to be guided/TIR by
the core.
 it is essentially determined by the refractive index contrast between
core and cladding of the fiber, assuming that the incident beam comes
from air or vacuum:

If the fiber is place in air then n0=1

This is the acceptance angle

 Numerical Aperture (N.A.)
 The numerical aperture (NA) of an optical system is a measure for its
angular acceptance for incoming light.
 The numerical aperture of an optical system is defined as the product
of the refractive index of the medium from which the light input is
received and the sine of the maximum ray angle against the axis,

Numerical Aperture if the cable is placed in air (n0=1)

Relative/Fractional Index Charge (Δ)

It is the ratio of refractive index difference in core and cladding to the refractive
index of core.
 V-Number/Normalized Frequency
V – number determines how many modes a fiber can support, It is given by,

where d is the diameter of the core, l is the wavelength of

light used and NA is the numerical aperture of the fibre.

If V ≤ 2.405, then the fibre is single mode fibre (SMF)

If V > 2.405, then the fibre is multimode fibre (MMF)

Number of Modes traveling in Fibre

Numerical
 Optical Fiber Loss and Attenuation
 The attenuation of an optical fiber measures the amount of light lost between

input and output. Total attenuation is the sum of all losses.

 Optical losses of a fiber are usually expressed in decibels per kilometer

(dB/km). The expression is called the fiber’s attenuation coefficient α and

the expression is

 It decides the number of repeaters required between transmitter and receiver

L=Length of optical fiber

P(z)=Optical power at a position z
P(0)= Optical power at origin.
 Losses in Optical Fiber
1) Absorption loss:
Due to the presence of impurities in the fiber cable some of the residues still
remain resulting in the absorption. The composition of the fiber and its fabrication
of fiber results in absorption loss. There is dissipation of optical power in the fiber
cable. There are two types of absorption loss
a. Intrinsic absorption: When the light signal interacts with the components of
the glass, an electron or metal ions, the light power is absorbed by the
impurities
b. Extrinsic absorption. Fiber optic splicing is another type of loss in optical fiber.
By joining two optical fibers end-to-end, splicing aims to ensure that the light
passing through it is almost as strong as the virgin fiber itself.
2) Due to Bending: Bending is the common problem that can cause optical fiber
losses generated by improper fiber optic handling. There are two basic types.
One is micro bending, and the other one is macro bending (shown in the picture
below). Macro bending refers to a large bend in the fiber (with more than a 2mm
radius).
3) Dispersion loss: Spreading of signal as it propagates along the fiber is
called dispersion and such medium is called dispersive medium
a) Intermodal Dispersion (For multimode fiber): It arises due to the mode
having different value of group velocity at a single frequency.
b) Intramodal/chromatic Dispersion (For Single mode): This is due to core
material which is a function of wavelength. If the laser used to transmit the
signal was a perfect single frequency then it would have an extremely high
bandwidth.

Intramodal/chromatic Dispersion
Thank you….