Lab 6 OptSim

Intro
In this lab an optical-electrical circuit is going to be virtually simulated. The analyses
that are going to be performed are related to the attenuation due to the propagation in
the fibre. Dispersion and other factors will no be displayed because the devices
employed are considered ideal. Also the features of electrical and optical noise were
disabled. However, the eye diagram will be discussed and also the screenshot of the
scopes.
Theory
An electrical sinusoidal signal will be sent from a function generator and through a
LASER (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) the signal will be
transformed into light. It will travel through a fibre with no amplifiers. At the end of the
fibre, the PIN photodiode will transform the optical signal into electrical. Finally the
signal will be filtered and sent into the oscilloscope. Also it has to be said that there are
two scopes at the end of the fibre and at the beginning.
This is what the schematic looks like

The first thing to discuss is the units: in this program both linear and logarithmic units
can be used. In equation 1 the relationship between them will be displayed.
(
) ( )
For example, 0 dBm equals to 1 mW.
The second thing is the parameters of each device in the simulation. First the signal
generator will send a sinusoidal signal at 2.5 GHz and with an amplitude of 0.5 AU??.
Secondly the optical source will placed; it will be a laser diode at a 1550nm wavelength.
At this wavelength the attenuation is minimal. Next the fibre will be characterized, the
attenuation at 1550 nm is going to be of 0.5 dB/km and the total length is 20km.
Therefore, the losses due to attenuation are 10 dB. This will be reflected in the
amplitude of the signal (see figures 1 & 2). The receiver will be described; it is a PIN
photodiode with quantum efficiency of 0.9, a responsivity of 0.8791 A/W, a -3dB
bandwidth of 20 GHz (also known as corner frequency) and the dark current has a value
of 0.1 nA. All these parameters will be described:
1. Responsivity: determines the current that generates the photodiode at a certain
wavelength with a amount of power.
2. Quantum Efficiency: determines how many electrons are created per photons in
the photodiode. The photons excite the semiconductor material (in this case is
PN junction) and make the electrons jump from the Valence Band to the
Conductance Band. This mechanism explains the current is generated.
3. -3dB Bandwidth or corner frequency: determines where the gain of the
photodiode is half. In other words, it specifies the maximum frequency a certain
receiver can work.
4. Dark current: is the parasite current that it is produced at ambient light.

Finally the filter has got 5 poles which means 100dB/decade of attenuation and the
corner frequency is set at 2 GHz. However the central frequency is 20.6 GHz; therefore
the cut-off frequency is at 22.6 GHz.
Another important equation that relates frequency and wavelength is
( )
Results
First the results from the scopes will be displayed. In the Y-axis the power in dBm is
displayed. dBm is a logarithmic unit employed in communications field. As it can be
seen at the beginning the amplitude is around 10 dBm (figure 1); on the other hand, at
the end of the fibre due to the attenuation the amplitude is around 0 dBm (figure 2).

Figure Error! No text of specified style in document.1 First optical Scope

Figure 2 Second optical scope

From figure 1 & 2, the wavelength can be extracted using equation 2.

An eye diagram is a common indicator of the quality of signals in high-speed digital
transmissions. The eye diagram is obtained from the oscilloscope that is at the end of
the circuit.

Figure 3 Eye diagram

Conclusion
In this simulation the only factor that deteriorated our signal was the attenuation in the
fibre. All the devices were ideal (except for the PIN with its dark current) and also the
noise for the simulation was disabled. The results look coherent since from 10 dBm to 0
dBm there are 10 dB difference, the ones provoked by the attenuation.