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Optical fiber is the technology associated with data transmission using light pulses
travelling along with a long fiber which is usually made of plastic or glass. Metal wires
are preferred for transmission in optical fiber communication as signals travel with fewer
damages.
The types of optical fibers depend on the refractive index, materials used, and mode of
propagation of light.
The classification based on the refractive index is as follows:
Step Index Fibers
Graded Index Fibers
The classification based on the materials used is as follows:
Plastic Optical Fibers
Glass Fibers
The classification based on the mode of propagation of light is as follows:
Single-Mode Fibers
Multimode Fibers
The mode of propagation and refractive index of the core is used to form four
combination types of optic fibers as follows:
Step index-single mode fibers
Graded index-Single mode fibers
Step index-Multimode fibers
Graded index-Multimode fibers
The technique of transmitting data from one location to another by transmitting infrared
light pulses using optical fiber is known as fiber optic communication. Here, the light is
in the form of a carrier signal that is changed to hold the data.
Basic elements of optical Fiber Communication System are:
1. Transmitter(Compact Light Source)
2. Optical Fiber Cable
3. Receiver(Photo Detector)
a)Enormous Potential Bandwidth
b)Signal Security
c)Electrical Isolation
d)Low Transmission Loss
a) Intensity
b) Wavelength
c) Spectral Width
d) Polarization
Intensity, wavelength and spectral width treat light as a scalar quantity but polarization treats light as vector quantity.
A law stating that the ratio of the sines of the angles of incidence and refraction of a wave are constant when it passes between two given media.
Total Internal Reflection (TIR) is a phenomenon , by which light experiences complete reflection at an interface between two media. i.e When the light ray is travelling from denser medium to less denser medium, the angle of incidence becomes greater than the critical angle no refraction will take place and the light rays are reflected back in the same medium.
There are 3 types of modes waveguide modes :
a) Transverse Electric wave
b) Transverse Magnetic wave
c) Transverse Electromagnetic wave (hybrid wave propagation)
Critical angle is the minimum angle of incident beyond which the total internal reflection occurs for light travelling from a medium of higher to one of lower refractive index.
V-number is defined by : V = 2πa/λ. N A. It is a dimensionless number gives a measure of the number of modes a fiber can support.
We can launch a ray inside a fiber in two ways:
i) Meridinal Ray : When the Ray which we launch in the fiber and axis of the fiber lies in the same plane then such a ray is known as meridinal ray.
Ray : These Rays are not confined to a single plan but instead tends to follow a helical type path along the fiber.
Cladding is necessary for an optical fiber for the following reasons:
• Provide proper light guidance inside the core.
• And to avoid leakage of light from the fiber.
Acceptance Angle : The maximum incidence angle of a light ray which can be used for injecting light into a fiber core or waveguide is known as acceptance angle
Numerical Aperture: For an optical fiber with core refractive index of n1 and cladding refractive index of n2 , Numerical Aperture(NA) is defined as :
PARAMETER | SINGLE-MODE OPTICAL FIBER | MULTIMODE OPTICAL FIBER |
---|---|---|
Number of propagating mode | Only one | More than one |
Core diameter | Small | Large |
Optical source | LASER | LED |
Bandwidth | More | Less |
Handling and coupling | Difficult | Easy |
Initial cost of fiber | Low | High |
Attenuation | Less | More |
Transmission Rate | High | Low |
The mechanisms of losses that occur in an optical fiber are:
1. Absorption (fiber material)
2. Scattering ( fiber material + structural imperfection)
3. Radiative effects
4. Pulse broadening.
Intermodal dispersion: Dispersion caused by the delay between different modes. Typically, it is the delay between the shortest path (zero mode) and the longest path (critical mode).
Intramodal dispersion: Dispersion that is independent of modes, related to the line width of the source and caused by variations in the refractive index as a function of wavelength.
Attenuation loss(or path propagation loss) is the reduction in power density (attenuation) of an electromagnetic wave as it propagates through space.
Attenuation occurring as a result of either a bend in an optical fiber that exceeds the minimum bend radius or an abrupt discontinuity in the core/cladding interface is called bending loss.
Macro bend losses occur when radius of curvature is large compared to the fiber diameter. Micro bend losses are small scale fluctuation in radius of curvature of fiber axis
Polarization is the electric field orientation of a light signal. Also, it can vary significantly along the length of a fiber polarization state. Thus, it is a fundamental property of an optical signal.
• It allows high intensity radiation.
• Because laser diode has narrow spectral width of its laser source which is preferable.
LED | LASER |
---|---|
Optical output is incoherent. | Optical output is nearly coherent. |
No optical cavity exists for wavelength selectivity. | The optical energy is produced in an optical resonant cavity. |
No spatial and temporal coherence | Optical energy has spatial and temporal coherence. |
The output radiation has a broad spectral width | The output beam has very directional and narrow spectral width. | `
The major components of lasers are:
• Amplifying medium
• An optical feedback
• Finally, the pumping source.
The important materials are:
1. InGaAs
2. InAlGaAs.
As we know re combination could be radiative and non radiative . also energy photon generated may or may not enter the fiber so there are two types of efficiencies
1. Internal Quantum Efficiency
2. External Quantum Efficiency
Advantages
• Simpler fabrication
• Low cost
• Less temperature dependent
• Linearity
Disadvantages
• Incoherent source of light
• Usually lower modulation Bandwidth
• Harmonic distortion
• Large Spectral
Lasers comes in many forms but for optical fiber communication “Laser diodes” are used exclusively.Laser diodes have response times less than 1ns and spectral widths of 2nm or less. Lasers are used in systems in which requirements are more than 200MHz
Emission within the low loss window of the fiber.
Narrow spectral width
Ease and linearity of modulation
High reliability
The possible noises that occur in optical receivers are as follows:
1. Photo detector noise
2. Quantum noise
3. Dark current noise ( bulk dark current, surface dark current )
4. Amplifier noise
5. Lastly the thermal noise or Johnson noise.
Fiber splicing is a Permanent joint formed between two individual optical fibers in the field or factory.
Optical fiber coupler is a device that distributes light from a main fiber into one or more branch fibers. Thus, we use a directional coupler to combine and split optical signals in an optical network.
It is the ratio of signal power to noise power, over a specific spectral bandwidth, at any point in an optical link. Noise power can be defined as any undesirable signal interference.
The dark current noise arises from electrons/holes which are thermally generated in the PN junction of the photodiode. Thus, this current continues to flow through the bias circuit of the device when no light is incident on the photodiode
A leaky mode in an optical fiber is a mode having electric field that decays monotonically for a finite distance in the transverse direction but becomes oscillatory everywhere beyond the finite distance
The eye diagram is a powerful measurement tool for assessing the data handling ability of a digital transmission.
The eye pattern measurements are done in time domain and allow the effects of waveform distortion to be shown immediately on the display of standard BER test equipment
A P2P or point to point fiber optic data link consists of an optical transmitter to transmit the data, optical fiber as the medium, and an optical receiver. There will be splicing points in between the fiber optic link system, there will be fiber optic connectors at transmitter and receiver points
WDM is wavelength division multiplexing .The optical beam consists of different wavelengths and several channel information is transmitted over a single channel.
The ratio of the reduced received power (or power received due to signal impairments) to the ideal received power is known as power penalties
In neighborhood processing we consider the value of each pixel along with the values of the pixels in the immediate neighborhood, to arrive at the new value of the pixel.< br>
It is possible that we find the minimum optical power that we receive, required for a specific bit error rate performance in a digital system. Hence,we refer to this minimum received power level as the quantum limit
We define the cutoff wavelength as the minimum value of wavelength that can be transmitted through the fiber. Additionally, the wavelength greater than the cutoff wavelength can be transmitted.
It is an approach to divide the number .No .of. Errors occurring over a certain time interval t by the number N of pulses transmitted during this interval
Avalanche Photodiode: An avalanche photodiode (APD) is a highly sensitive semiconductor photodiode detector that exploits the photoelectric effect to convert light into electricity.
PIN Photodiode: PIN photodiode is a kind of photo detector; it can convert optical signals into electrical signals.
A P2P or point to point fiber optic data link consists of an optical transmitter to
transmit
the data, optical fiber as the medium, and an optical receiver. There will be splicing
points in between the fiber optic link system, there will be fiber optic connectors at
transmitter and receiver points.
1. Access to dead zones
An important application of RoF is its use to provide wireless coverage in the area where wireless backhaul link is not possible.
2. FTTA (Fiber to the Antenna)
By using an optical connection directly to the antenna, the equipment vendor can gain several advantages like low line losses, immunity to lightening strikes/electric discharges etc.
Rise time budget: A rise-time budget analysis is a convenient method to determine the dispersion limitation of an optical link. The power budget involves the power level calculations from the transmitter to the receiver.
Along with the primary design criteria, there are some additional parameters which facilitate better design and quality analysis of the optical link. These factors consist of the scheme of modulation, the system fidelity, cost, upgradeability, commercial availability etc.
When designing a fiber optic communication system some of the following factor must be taken into consideration:
• Power Budget
• Bandwidth and Riser Time Budgets
• Fiber Connectors
• Fiber Optic Couplers
• Wavelength Division Multiplexers(WDM)
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