OPTICAL COMMUNICATION ASSIGNMENT 2

1Q). What range of BER Values does the BER of synchronous heterodyne ASK
receiver technique match with technique? What is the reason behind it? Plot the
BER vs SNR Value.
For high values of SNR or every low BER values the BER or performance of
synchronous and asynchronous heterodyne receiver are matched. Although
asynchronous technique requires more average photons at the beginning. This is
because for high values of u erfc(u) is approximated to exp(-u^2)
erfc( SNR ) ~ exp(-SNR)
MATLAB CODE
db=[-10:20];
SNR=10.^(db/10);
BER_sync=1/2.*erfc((SNR./4).^0.5);
BER_async=1/2.*(exp(-(SNR/4)));
semilogy(db,BER_async,'r--o',db,BER_sync,'b-o')
grid on
xlabel('SNR(db)')
ylabel('BER')

PLOT SNR VS BER

2Q) Write a short note on Erbium-Doped Fiber Ampliers (EDFA)

Amplier Types

There are three most important types of optical ampliers: the erbium-doped ber
amplier, the semiconductor optical amplier, and the ber Raman amplier.
Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers
The amplifying medium is a glass optical ber doped with erbium ions. The erbium
is pumped to a state of population inversion with a separate optical input. The
erbium-doped glass optical gain medium amplies light at wavelengths that are in
the neighborhood of 1550 nm the optical wavelengths that suffer minimum
attenuation in optical bers. Erbium-doped optical ber ampliers (EDFAs) have low
noise and can amplify many wavelengths simultaneously, making the EDFA the
amplier of choice for most applications in optical communications.

Erbium-Doped

OpticalFiber

Optical Signal
0 1550 nm

Optical Pump

Figure 1. An erbium-doped ber amplier.

EDFA Congurations
The conguration of a co-propagating EDFA is shown in Figure 5. The optical pump is
combined with the optical signal into the erbium-doped ber with a wavelength
division multiplexer. A second multiplexer removes residual pump light from the
ber. An in-line optical lter provides additional insurance that pump light does not
reach the output of the optical amplier. An optical isolator is used to prevent
reflected light from other portions of the optical system from entering the amplier.

Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifier

Optical Signal
Erbium -Doped

Amplified

0 1550 nm
OpticalFiber

Optical Signal

WDM
WDM
Optical

Isolator

coupler
coupler

& Filter

Optical Pump

Residual Pump

Figure 2. An EDFA for which the optical signal and optical pump are co-propagating.
An EDFA with a counter propagating pump is pictured in Figure 6. The copropagating geometry produces an amplier with less noise and less output power.
The counter propagating geometry produces a noisier amplier with high output
power. A compromise can be made by combining the co- and counter-propagating
geometries in a bi-directional conguration.

Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifier

Optical Signal
Erbium -Doped

Amplified

0 1550 nm
OpticalFiber

Optical Signal

WDM
WDM
Optical

Isolator

coupler
coupler

& Filter

Residual Pump Optical Pump

Figure 3. An EDFA for which the optical signal and optical pump are counterpropagating.
The property of erbium doped bers that makes them suitable for WDM
communications is the relatively slow response of the optical gain to variations in
optical signal power. It general it is possible for power fluctuations in a data stream
to modulate an ampliers gain so as to distort the data in a second stream.
Fortunately, the data rates of typical optical communication signals are typically
greater than a gigabit per second, and the gain of an EDFA responds only to the
average power of the signal.