DISPERSION

In lossless system, since energy must be conserved, the broadened pulse will have a lower amplitude.
  For Radio system:
The sidebands of the modulating signal spectrum can be seen and thus signal can be recovered in time or
frequency domain

 For Optical system:

Total spectral width = convolution of carrier and modulating signals = more or less identical to spectrum
of carrier.
Observation:
there is no clear signature of modulation in the spectral domain for an optical system. Therefore, spectral
domain cannot be used to recover signal (demodulation). Only time domain technique, containing no
spectral info, can be used. => Amplitude modulation. Not even suppressed carrier or single-band. Signal
would be recovered simply by amplitude detection.

To visualize the optical system and see how it will be distorted, consider the optical carrier as a
combination of many carriers simultaneously transmitted on the optical fiber.
Parallel and simultaneous transmission of multiple carriers and each carrier is [amplitude] modulated by
the same modulating signal. Black arrows are side bands.

Pulse riding on onc carrier is no the same as pulse riding in another carrier or adjacent. Why?
 Refractive index is a function of wavelength
 Velocity is a function of frequency

Pulses arriving at different times leads to pulse broadening (material dispersion)

In time domain:

 Frequency axis is perpendicular to paper.

 Over time, the axis tilts to the right under the influence of the spectral profile. So shape of pulse
over time is determined by shape of carrier’s spectral profile
 Bandwidth is purely determined by the carrier since spectral width of carrier is much larger than
bandwidth of modulating frequency
MATHEMATICALLY:
MATERIAL DISPERSION:

WAVEGUIDE DISPERSION
CHROMATIC DISPERSION

= Dmat + Dwg
 Dmat is a property of glass. Once glass is identified, Dmat is determined
 Dwg depends on bV diagram, Which depends upon V number which depends on :
o Size of fiber
o Refractive index different
o Numerical aperture, etc
So, Dwg is structure-dependent and thus can be manipulated
High data rate at 1310nm because of almost no dispersion.
ATTENUATION
 Attenuation can be due to Absorption in the material or Scattering.
 Scattering is the larger attenuation factor. It occurs when scattering directs light particles outside
of the numerical aperture range (cone)

IMPROVING LOSS & DISPERSION CHARACTERISTICS OF OPTICAL FIBERS

Improving Dispersion:
 MM fibers: Large dispersion
 Graded-index: Similar core size to MM fiber. Used in LANs
 SM fibers: For long distance optical comm. Which has Zero dispersion at 1310nm.
 Disp-Shifted Fiber: To obtain low dispersion at 1550nm, the refractive index profile can be
modified
 Disp-Flattened Fiber: Accommodates large number of wavelengths between 1310nm and
1550nm

Reducing Loss:

Mode-field diameter

For complex fibers (complex refr. Index profile), the mode field diameter is more interesting than the V
number. For example, to join two types fibers (diff. refr indexes for example), make the mode field
diameter the same!

=> Loss = 0
if MFD1 = MFD2

Bi-refringence of optical fiber

Polarized modes have different phase constants during propagation, thus will have different effective
(modal) indices
High data rates ( > 10GHz) undergo PMD

Cutoff wavelength of Optical Fiber

For a SM fiber, it is the wavelength after which the next mode will be excited (Note: all we want for a SM
fiber is one mode).