IEG4030-Tutorial 11

IEG4030-Tutorial 11
1. Evolution of Lightwave Systems:

First Generation: near 0.8μm operating wavelength, GaAs semiconductor lasers, MM fiber, 45Mb/s bit rate, 10km repeater

spacing.

Second Generation: 1.3μm operating wavelength, InGaAsP semiconductor lasers, SM fiber, 2Gb/s bit rate, 50km repeater

spacing.

Third Generation: 1.55μm operating wavelength, DFB single frequency semiconductor lasers, SM fiber, up to 10Gb/s bit

rate, 60-70km repeater spacing. Coherent detection is also studied in this stage.

Fourth Generation: 1.55μm operating wavelength, DFB semiconductor lasers, SM fiber, up to 10Gb/s bit rate, up to 100km

amplifier spacing. It makes use of optical amplification for increasing the repeater spacing and of WDM technology for

increasing the bit rate. Dispersion management technique is also used due to large GVD of standard SMF in 1.55μm

window.

Fifth Generation (under development): on the base of the fourth generation, it extends the wavelength range from C band

1
 IEG4030-Tutorial 11

(1530μm-1565μm) to S band (1460μm-1530μm)+ C band(1530μm-1565μm)+L band (1565μm-1625μm). Raman amplifier

can be used to cover the three bands and it also help to reduce noise and improve SNR. Its single channel bit rate can be up

to 40Gb/s.

2
 IEG4030-Tutorial 11

2. Optical Fiber Communication System Limitation:

Attenuation: fiber loss, splitting loss, insertion losses, system power budget.

Solutions: increasing transmitter power and receiver sensitivity, using optical amplifiers.

Chromatic Dispersion: →pulse broadening →inter-symbol interference.

Solutions: dispersion compensation and solitons.

Nonlinear effects: FWM, SRS, SBS, SPM, XPM→waveform distortion→power penalty.

Solutions: power control, phase modulation; frequency assignment.

Noise: with various mechanisms, mainly about ASE added by optical amplifier→power penalty.

Solutions: using optical filters, also optical regeneration (under research).

Polarization: polarization dependent gain/loss, PMD, polarization sensitive→power penalty.

Solutions: polarization diversity, using polarization-maintaining fibers (but too expensive).

3
 IEG4030-Tutorial 11

3. Optical Network hierarchy:

4
 IEG4030-Tutorial 11

4. Optical Network topologies:

4.1 Point-to-Point:

Point-to-point links constitute the simplest kind of Lightwave systems. Their role is to transport information from one place

to another as accurately as possible.

4.2 Distribution Networks:

Such system requires that information is not only transmitted but is also distributed to a group of subscribers. The

transmission distances are relatively short (<50km), but the bit rate can be as high as 10Gb/s.

Two kinds of topologies: tree or bus.

5
 IEG4030-Tutorial 11

4.3 Local Area Networks:

Such system requires the networks in which a large number of users within a local area are interconnected in such a way

that any user can access the network randomly to transmit data to any other user. The transmission distances are relatively

short (<10km).

Three main topologies: ring, star and bus (similar to the above in 4.2)