Optical Fibre

Communication
Dr.-Ing Muhammad Rizwan Amirzada

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 1

My Introduction
◦Muhammad Rizwan Amirzada

◦MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Universität

Kassel, Germany

◦Specialization in MEMS structures (Micromirrors)

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 2

Study Material
◦Optical Communication Systems by J. Gowar (2nd Ed)

◦Optoelectronics and Photonics by S.O. Kasap

◦These slides will be available after every lecture

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 3

Introduction
◦Communication ?????
◦ It is transfer of information…..
◦ This information can be…..
◦ Reading a book or newspaper
◦ Watching T.V
◦ Telephone call
◦ Email, file transfer etc.
◦ This transfer involves a source,
channel and destination
◦ Together, it is called a communication system

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 4

Introduction (contd.)
◦ What is a communication system?
◦ It is a system, used to transfer an information from one point to the other
◦ It has three basic elements i.e.
◦ Transmitter: converts information to a suitable form so that it can be
transmitted
◦ Channel: physical medium through which information travels, it adds
noise, attenuation etc.
◦ Receiver: converts information to a suitable form so that it can be
recognized

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 5

Introduction (contd.)
◦ Basic Communication Model

Source of
information Output
Transmitter Channel Receiver
and transducer Transducer

Communication System

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 6

Introduction (contd.)
◦ Basic Communication Model (contd.)
Source of
information Output
Transmitter Channel Receiver
and transducer Transducer

◦ Source of Information: Audio, Video, Picture, text or data etc.

◦ Input transducer can be:
◦ Microphone
◦ Camera
◦ Keyboard

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 7

Introduction (contd.)
◦ Basic Communication Model (contd.)
Source of
information Output
Transmitter Channel Receiver
and transducer Transducer

◦ Output transducer:
◦ Speaker
◦ Monitor

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 8

Introduction (contd.)
◦ Basic Communication Model (contd.)
Source of
information Output
Transmitter Channel Receiver
and transducer Transducer

◦ Transmitter will:
◦ Convert the electrical signal into a form which is suitable for channel
◦ Modulation
◦ Amplification

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 9

Introduction (contd.)
◦ Basic Communication Model (contd.)
Source of
information Output
Transmitter Channel Receiver
and transducer Transducer

◦ Receiver will:
◦ Extract an estimate of original transducer output
◦ Demodulation
◦ Amplification

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 10

Introduction (contd.)
◦ Basic Communication Model (contd.)
Source of
information Output
Transmitter Channel Receiver
and transducer Transducer

◦ Channel can be:

◦ Wire lines
◦ OPTICAL FIBRE
◦ Wireless (atmosphere)

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Optical Fibre (Introduction)
◦ Why we need optical Fibre ???
◦ With the passage of time, the information traffic increased rapidly
◦ It requires a medium which can carry
this traffic
◦ Copper wires or coaxial cables are limited
because of low bandwidth and
attenuation

◦ The SOLUTION is OPTICAL FIBRE

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 12

Optical Fibre (Introduction)
◦ The most recent data transfer speed is as under
◦ 2006 – Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation transferred 14 terabits
per second over a single 160 km long optical fiber
◦ 2009 – Bell Labs in Villarceaux, France transferred 100 Gbit/s over 7000 km
fiber
◦ 2010 – Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation transferred 69.1 Tbit/s
over a single 240 km fiber
◦ 2012 – Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation transferred 1 Petabit
per second over 50 kilometers over a single fiber

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 13

Optical Fibre (Introduction) contd.
◦ Today, all the long distance comm. is carried over optical fibres
◦ Late 1980s, all overseas
communication was
shifted to optical fibre
from copper or coax
◦ Fibre to the Home (FTTH)
scheme is the recent
development

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Motivation
◦ How data can be transmitted simultaneously ????
Wavelength Division Multiplexing

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 15

Optical Communication System

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 16

Optical Fibre (Introduction) contd.
◦ First transatlantic operation was carried out in 2001
◦ Surgery of a human patient
◦ 7000kM between Strasbourg (France) and
New York (USA)
◦ Time delay was 155msec (for a feasible
surgery time delay must be < 335msec)
◦ Operation performed in 54 min
◦ High speed 10Gbits/sec fibre optic link
was used
◦ Thanks to the Optical Fibre

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 17

Optical Fiber: History
◦ Daniel Colladon and Jacques Babinet, first demonstrated travelling of
light in a water pipe in early 1840, Paris France
◦ Experiments continues and in 1953 a Dutch Scientist named Bram Van
Heel successfully transmitted an image via bundle of optical fiber
◦ German physicist, Manfred Börner, demonstrated first optical fiber
working data transmission system in 1965
◦ Charles K. Kao and George A. Hockham, British scientists in 1965
produced the idea to reduce the attenuation in optical fiber by
removing impurities, got Noble Prize in 2009
◦ In late 1970s, scientist were able to produce the optical fiber with
attenuation less than 4 db/km

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 18

Comparison of optical and electrical
systems
Advantages of Optical Fibre system Compared to Electrical system
Larger Bandwidth
Optical Freq. 1014 Hz (NIR) Limit ~ 1GHz
10Gb/s in practice and 20 – 60GHz in research (Attenuation increases with increase in frequency)
Much less attenuation…….less repeaters required
Material: Glass or polymer
Light weight and small size Material: Copper very heavy and large size
Ideal for aircrafts etc.
No potential problems (Insulator) Serious potential problems
No interference or crosstalk between neighbouring Interference or crosstalk
fibres (No shielding required)
Nearly perfect signal security Less signal security
Low transmission loss 20dB/kM at 100MHz
0.18dB/kM (1.55µm) for single mode fibre

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Electromagnetic Spectrum

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 20

Electromagnetic Spectrum (Contd.)

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 21

Interference of two identical waves

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 22

What is Light???
◦ Light is an electromagnetic radiation within a certain portion of
electromagnetic spectrum
◦ Light has dual Nature
◦ Particles (Newton believes, photoelectric effect is an example later by Einstein)
◦ Waves (Huygens believe and Thomas Young’s double slit experiment)

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Refraction
◦ It is the change in the direction of propagation of wave when it enters
from one medium to the other
◦ If wave is entering from light medium to dense, it bends towards normal
◦ If wave is entering from dense to the
light medium, it bends away from
the normal

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 24

Refractive Index
◦ It is the ratio of the speed of the light in the vacuum to the other
medium
◦ Mathematically
𝑐
𝑛=
𝑣
◦ Refractive index varies with wavelength
◦ This is Dispersion
◦ Example is splitting of white light
into different colours

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 25

Snell’s Law
◦ The sine of the angle of incidence times the refractive index of first
medium is equal to the sine of the angle of incidence time the
refractive index of second medium
◦ 𝑛1 sin 𝜃1 = 𝑛2 sin 𝜃2

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Total Internal Reflection
◦ Phenomenon occurs when a propagating wave strikes a medium
boundary larger then a particular angle
◦ That particular angle is called critical angle

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Acceptance angle and Acceptance cone
◦ Critical angle can be calculated by Snell's law
−1
𝑛2
𝜃𝑐 = sin
𝑛1

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 28

Optical Fibre…Introduction
◦ It is flexible fine transparent glass or plastic which can propagate
light
◦ It has two parts
◦ Core (Inner part) which transmits the signal
◦ Cladding (outer part) which guides the light within the core
◦ Since light is guided so it is also called an Optical Waveguide
◦ Core always have high refractive index than cladding
◦ Cladding is normally made up of pure silica (n = 1.444 at 1.55µm)
◦ Core is made up of silica but with some doping of germanium
oxide or other oxides (increase in ‘n’ i.e. 1.4475)

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 29

Optical Fibre…Introduction (contd.)
◦ How doping change the refractive index ???

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 30

Optical Fibre…Introduction (contd.)

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 31

Principle of propagation
◦ For propagation through optical fibre, two condition must be
fulfilled

◦ Refractive index of core should be greater than the cladding

◦ Incident angle should be greater than critical angle

◦ Total internal reflection phenomenon will occur and light will

propagate through fibre

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 32

Ray model and Wave model
◦ Normally two different models can be used to represent a wave in
an optical waveguide
◦ Ray Model: it is obtained by a line in the direction of energy flow and
perpendicular to wavefronts
◦ Very simple and laws of reflection, refraction are well analysed
◦ It cannot tell the field in the cladding
◦ It cannot show the phenomenon of interference and diffraction
◦ Wave Model: it explains the phenomenon of interference and diffraction
◦ Modes in optical fibre can be well analysed

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 33

Types of Optical Fibres
◦ Generally three types exists
◦ Single Mode Fibre
◦ Step index Fibre
◦ Graded index Fibre
◦ Last two are multimode fibres

◦ It depends on the physical dimensions of fibre i.e. core diameter

◦ For a typical single mode fibre, core diameter is in between 8 - 10µm
◦ Similarly for multimode fibre, core diameter is more than 50µm

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 34

Types of Optical Fibres (contd.)

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 35

Manufacturing of Optical Fibre
◦ Optical fibre mainly manufactured from pure silica
◦ We start by vaporization with chlorine
◦ Reaction with water or oxygen ….. Preform formation
◦ Second step is fibre drawing by using these preforms
𝑆𝑖𝐶𝑙4 + 2𝐻2 𝑂 𝑆𝑖𝑂2 + 4𝐻𝐶𝑙
OR
𝑆𝑖𝐶𝑙4 + 𝑂2 𝑆𝑖𝑂2 + 2𝐶𝑙2

◦ Dopant like GeO2 also added with the same process

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 36

Manufacturing of Optical Fibre (contd.)
◦ Outside Vapour Deposition (OVD)
◦ Vapours of SiO2 and GeO2
are mixed together. The quantity
of dopant is carefully monitor by
control unit.
◦ First, the core layer is deposited
and then the cladding layer.
◦ At the end, ceramic or graphite
rod is removed by heating and
preformed is formed

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 37

Manufacturing of Optical Fibre (contd.)
◦ Modified Chemical Vapour Deposition (MCVD)
◦ Start with pure silica tube
◦ Similar reactants are used and they are blown inside the tube
◦ Burner is continuously heating the rotating tube
◦ Soot is formed inside the tube
◦ The material which is deposited
inside the tube will turn to core
and pure silica tube will react as
cladding part of fibre

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 38

Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapour
Deposition (PECVD)

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 39

Manufacturing of Optical Fibre (contd.)
◦ Plasma Modified Chemical Vapor Deposition (PMCVD)
◦ Similar process as MCVD
◦ Reactants enter in the pure silica tube
◦ RF coil around the tube
generates the high
temperature plasma inside
the tube
◦ Soot formation takes place
and due to very high
temperature, preform forms

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 40

Manufacturing of Optical Fibre (contd.)
◦ Optical Fibre Drawing Process
◦ After preform formation, drawing process is
used to draw the fibre from preform
◦ Preform is heated at 2200°C to melt
◦ After that a long thin fibre is drawn from the
middle
◦ Diameter of the fibre is carefully monitored
◦ Drawn velocity is 10m/s (production) and
0.2m/s (Laboratory)
◦ At the end the fibre is winded

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 41

Losses in Optical Fibre
◦ There are two different types of losses in optical fibre
◦ Attenuation
◦ Absorption
◦ Scattering
◦ Bending losses
◦ Dispersion
◦ Intermodal dispersion
◦ Material dispersion
◦ Waveguide dispersion

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 42

Losses in Optical Fibre (contd.)
◦ Attenuation is the loss of optical power as signal travel through the
fibre
◦ Mathematically it can be represented as
10 𝑃𝑖
𝐴𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑢𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 = log10
𝐿 𝑃𝑜
◦ Unit for attenuation is in dB/kM
◦ Three main factors of attenuation are: Absorption, Scattering and
radiation loss

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 43

Losses in Optical Fibre (contd.)
◦ Absorption is the portion of attenuation resulting from the
conversion of optical power to some other form such as heat
◦ Three main causes of absorption are
◦ Imperfections in the atomic structures of the fibre material
- it is caused by missing molecules or atoms, or absorption of hydrogen
molecules in glass
◦ Intrinsic absorption
- Basic fibre material properties, if no impurities then all the absorption
will be intrinsic
◦ Extrinsic absorption
-
- Presence of impurities in fibre material, also when OH are introduced

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 44

Losses in Optical Fibre (contd.)
◦ Three main windows of operation which shows optimum
attenuation

◦ 850 nm (cheap lasers)

◦ 1300 nm (min dispersion)
◦ 1550 nm (min absorption)

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 45

Losses in Optical Fibre (contd.)
◦ Scattering is caused by the interaction of light with density
fluctuations in the fibre
◦ When light wave strikes those density areas, it scattered in all
directions
◦ This scattering of light in all
directions causes the
attenuation of light

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 46

Losses in Optical Fibre (contd.)
◦ In commercial optical fibres, which operates from 700 nm to
1600 nm, the main cause of scattering is Rayleigh Scattering
◦ Rayleigh scattering caused because there are some inhomogeneities
smaller then wavelength
◦ It occurs when the size of inhomogeneities are 10 times smaller than
operating wavelength
◦ Mathematically
1
𝛼~ 4
λ
◦ It restricts to use shorter wavelength for fibre operation

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 47

Losses in Optical Fibre (contd.)
◦ Bending is also a cause of attenuation
◦ It can be classified in two different types
◦ Macroscopic bending
◦ Microscopic bending
◦ Macroscopic bend losses observed when fibre bend’s radius is
large enough
◦ It occurs while installing the fibre and propagating mode is leaked
outside in the cladding

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 48

Losses in Optical Fibre (contd.)
◦ Microscopic bending occurs during the fabrication
◦ The surface of core sometimes not homogeneous, this produces
some irregularities on core surface
◦ When light wave strikes these
irregular surfaces, it changes
its direction and mix with
higher order modes

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 49

Losses in Optical Fibre (contd.)
◦ Dispersion is the phenomenon in which the velocity of the
propagating EM wave depends on wavelength
◦ Means every wavelength travel at different speed
◦ Because of this phenomenon, the pulse broadening occurs

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 50

Losses in Optical Fibre (contd.)
◦ If the dispersion is more, then the bit interval must be high
◦ It means fewer bits can be transmitted per unit time
◦ Hence lower bit rate
◦ It concludes, higher the dispersion, then lower the bit rate

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 51

Losses in Optical Fibre (contd.)
◦ Intermodal dispersion occurs in multimode fibre
◦ Different modes travels at different speed, so if pulse is constituted
with different modes then phenomenon is intermodal dispersion

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 52

Losses in Optical Fibre (contd.)
◦ Material dispersion is because of different frequency components
present in output of an optical source
◦ Each wavelength travels at different speed in the optical fibre

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 53

Losses in Optical Fibre (contd.)
◦ In optical fibre, propagation velocity depends on wavelength
◦ It means when input
pulse is made up of
many wavelengths,
it spreads out in
time as it travels

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 54

Losses in Optical Fibre (contd.)
◦ Velocities of propagating wave are important
◦ Phase velocity is the velocity of a monochromatic wave
- a wavefront is chosen from the monochromatic wave and its velocity is
called phase velocity
◦ Group velocity
- An optical source produces spectrum of different wavelengths
- When these wavelengths combined with each other while travelling
they form wavepackets
- Velocity of those wavepackets is referred as group velocity

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 55

Losses in Optical Fibre (contd.)

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 56

Losses in Optical Fibre (contd.)
◦ These wavepackets consists of different wavelengths
◦ When these wavepackets travels in a dispersive medium, it
changes its shape

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 57

Losses in Optical Fibre (contd.)
◦ Waveguide dispersion is because of the geometry of the optical
fibre/waveguide
◦ Light travels partly in the core and in the cladding
◦ Cladding has the low refractive index so the portion of light in
cladding travels faster as compare to core
◦ As the wavelength increases, the power distribution in cladding
also increases
◦ This causes different speed in core and cladding, hence dispersion

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 58

Losses in Optical Fibre (contd.)
◦ This type of dispersion can be reduced
by modifying the geometry/index profile
of optical fibre
◦ Material dispersion can not be avoided
as it is the property of the material

OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATION 59