Fiber Optics through experiments

B.Tech Project Report

Submitted to
Dr. Amit Neogi

By
Devraj Divakar,Rajat Kashyap,Shekhar Jain,Suhas Sharma

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the

Award of Degree of

BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY
IN

DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION AND

COMPUTER ENGINEERING

THE LNMIIT
 Certificate

This is to certify that the project report entitled “Fiber

Optics through experiments” submitted by Devraj
Divakar (Y07UC037) ,Rajat Kashyap(Y07UC093),
Shekhar Jain(Y07UC115) and Suhas
Sharma(Y07UC127) to The LNMIIT, Jaipur in partial
fulfillment for the Semi Annual Bachelor of
Technology Project work in Communication and
Computer Engineering is a bonafide record of the
project work carried out by them under my supervision
during the year 2010.

Dr. Amit Neogi

Communication and Computer Engineering
The LNMIIT, Jaipur
INDIA
Contents
Title page
Acknowledgement
Certificate

Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Major milestones
1.3 Technology
1.4 Transmitters
1.5 Receivers
1.6 History Of Attenuation

Chapter 2 Fibers

2.1 Introduction
2.2 Amplifiers
2.3 Types of fiber
2.3.1 Single mode fiber
2.3.2 Multimode fibers
2.3.3 Plastic mode fibers
2.4 Fiber optic specifications
2.4.1 Attenuation
2.4.2 Dispersion
2.4.3 Bandwidth distance product
2.4.4 Numerical aperture
Chapter 3.Wave Propagation

3.1 Maxwell Equation.

3.2 Wave propagation in Cylindrical Waveguide.

Chapter 4.Experiments

4.1Numerical Aperture
4.2 Mode Field Diameter Of a Single Mode Fiber
4.3 Refractive Index Profile of a Multimode Optical Fiber
by the Near-Field Scanning Technique.
4.4 Determining the V Parameter,the core radius of a Step
index Single mode fiber

5. Problems Faced
6. Conclusion & Future Work
 Chapter 1
Introduction
1.Introduction
Fiber-optic communication is a method of transmitting information from one
place to another by sending pulses of light through an optical fiber. The light
forms an electromagnetic carrier wave that is modulated to carry
information. First developed in the 1970s, fiber-optic communication
systems have revolutionized the telecommunications industry and have
played a major role in the advent of the Information Age. Because of its
advantages over electrical transmission, optical fibers have largely replaced
copper wire communications in core networks in the developed world.

2.Major milestones
1854: John Tyndall demonstrated light guiding in water jets (Total Internal
Reflection).
1960: Theodore Maiman demonstrated first laser at Hughes Research
Laboratories.
1962: GE, IBM and MIT demonstrated first semiconductor laser diodes.
1966: Kao and Hockham published paper outlining the criteria (<20dB/km)
that optical
fibers can be used in telecommunication.
1970: Corning developed single-mode fiber with loss of 17dB/km at 633nm.
1987: Dave Payne at University of Southampton developed Erbium doped
fiber amplifier
operating at 1550nm.
1988: First trans-Atlantic fiber-optic cable, TAT-8, in service.
1996: Fujitsu, NTT Labs, and Bell Labs all reported sending 1-Tb/s through
single optical
fiber.
2004: 0.96-Tb/s over 13100km (Tyco), 4.27-Tb/s over 300km (KDDIl), 6-
Tb/s over
6120km (Alcatel) transmission demonstrated in research laboratories
3.Technology
Modern fiber-optic communication systems generally include an optical
transmitter to convert an electrical signal into an optical signal to send into
the optical fiber, a cable containing bundles of multiple optical fibers that is
routed through underground conduits and buildings, multiple kinds of
amplifiers, and an optical receiver to recover the signal as an electrical
signal. The information transmitted is typically digital information generated
by computers, telephone systems, and cable television companies.

4.Transmitters
The most commonly-used optical transmitters are semiconductor devices
such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and laser diodes. The difference
between LEDs and laser diodes is that LEDs produce incoherent light, while
laser diodes produce coherent light. For use in optical communications,
semiconductor optical transmitters must be designed to be compact,
efficient, and reliable, while operating in an optimal wavelength range, and
directly modulated at high frequencies.

In its simplest form, an LED is a forward-biased p-n junction, emitting light

through spontaneous emission, a phenomenon referred to
as electroluminescence. The emitted light is incoherent with a relatively wide
spectral width of 30-60 nm. LED light transmission is also inefficient, with
only about 1 % of input power, or about 100 microwatts, eventually
converted into launched powerwhich has been coupled into the optical fiber.
However, due to their relatively simple design, LEDs are very useful for low-
cost applications.

A semiconductor laser emits light through stimulated emission rather than

spontaneous emission, which results in high output power (~100 mW) as
well as other benefits related to the nature of coherent light. The output of a
laser is relatively directional, allowing high coupling efficiency (~50 %) into
single-mode fiber. The narrow spectral width also allows for high bit rates
since it reduces the effect of chromatic dispersion. Furthermore,
semiconductor lasers can be modulated directly at high frequencies because
of short recombination time.
5.Receivers
The main component of an optical receiver is a photodetector, which
converts light into electricity using the photoelectric effect. The
photodetector is typically a semiconductor-based photodiode. Several types
of photodiodes include p-n photodiodes, a p-i-n photodiodes, and avalanche
photodiodes. Metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodetectors are also
used due to their suitability for circuit integration inregenerators and
wavelength-division multiplexers.

6.History Of Attenuation
 Chapter 2
Fibers
1. Indtroduction
Fiber optics is a medium for carrying information from one point to
another in the form of light. Unlike the copper form of transmission, fiber
optics is not electrical in nature. A basic fiber optic system consists of a
transmitting device that converts an electrical signal into a light signal,
an optical fiber cable that carries the light, and a receiver that accepts
the light signal and converts it back into an electrical signal. The
complexity of a fiber optic system can range from very simple (i.e., local
area network) to extremely sophisticated and expensive (i.e., longdistance
telephone or cable television trunking).

2. Amplifiers
The transmission distance of a fiber-optic communication system has
traditionally been limited by fiber attenuation and by fiber distortion. By
using opto-electronic repeaters, these problems have been eliminated. These
repeaters convert the signal into an electrical signal, and then use a
transmitter to send the signal again at a higher intensity than it was before.
Because of the high complexity with modern wavelength-division multiplexed
signals (including the fact that they had to be installed about once every
20 km), the cost of these repeaters is very high.

An alternative approach is to use an optical amplifier, which amplifies the

optical signal directly without having to convert the signal into the electrical
domain. It is made by doping a length of fiber with the rare-earth
mineral erbium, and pumping it with light from a laser with a shorter
wavelength than the communications signal (typically 980 nm). Amplifiers
have largely replaced repeaters in new installations.

3.Types of fiber
1. Single mode fiber :- single-mode optical fiber (SMF) (monomode
optical fiber, single-mode optical waveguide, or unimode fiber) is
an optical fiber designed to carry only a single ray of light (mode).
Modes are the possible solutions of Helmholtz equationfor waves,
which is obtained by combining Maxwells equations and the boundary
conditions. These modes define the way the wave travels through
space, i.e how the wave is distributed in space. Waves can have the
same mode but have different frequencies. This is the case in single-
mode fibers, where we can have waves with different frequencies, but
of the same mode, which means that they are distributed in space in
the same way, and that gives us a single ray of light. Although the ray
travels parallel to the length of the fiber, it is often calledtransverse
mode since its electromagnetic vibrations occur perpendicular
(transverse) to the length of the fiber. The 2009 Nobel Prize in
Physics was awarded to Charles K. Kao for his theoretical work on the
single-mode optical fiber.

2. Multimode fibers :- Multi-mode optical fiber (multimode fiber or MM

fiber or fiber) is a type of optical fiber mostly used for communication
over shorter distances, such as within a building or on a campus.
Typical multimode links have data rates of 10 Mbit/s to 10 Gbit/s over
link lengths of up to 600 meters—more than sufficient for the majority
of premises applications.

3. Plastic mode fibers :- These fibers serve as a complement for glass

fibers in short-haul communications links, because they are easy to
handle, flexible, and economical. Because of these merits, varied
applications with POFs have been developed and commercialized, from
their use as a simple light transmission guide to their utilization as
sensors and telecommunications cables.
4.Fiber optic specifications
1.Attenuation:-Fiber attenuation, which necessitates the use of
amplification systems, is caused by a combination of material
absorption, Rayleigh scattering, Mie scattering, and connection losses.
Although material absorption for pure silica is only around 0.03 dB/km
(modern fiber has attenuation around 0.3 dB/km), impurities in the original
optical fibers caused attenuation of about 1000 dB/km. Other forms of
attenuation are caused by physical stresses to the fiber, microscopic
fluctuations in density, and imperfect splicing techniques.

2.Dispersion:-
Dispersion, expressed in terms of the symbol Nt, is defined as pulse
spreading in an optical fiber. As a pulse of light propagates through a
fiber, elements such as numerical aperture, core diameter, refractive
index profile, wavelength, and laser line width cause the pulse to
broaden.

Pulse broadening

Dispersion is generally divided into two categories: modal dispersion and

chromatic dispersion.

Modal Dispersion: is defined as pulse spreading caused by the time

delay between lower-order modes (modes or rays propagating straight
through
the fiber close to the optical axis) and higher-order modes (mode
propagating at steeper angles). This is shown in Figure. Modal
 dispersion is problematic in multimode fiber, causing bandwidth
limitation, but it is not a problem in single-mode fiber where only one
mode is allowed to propagate.

3.Bandwidth distance product:- Because the effect of dispersion

increases with the length of the fiber, a fiber transmission system is often
characterized by its bandwidth-distance product, often expressed in units
of MHz×km. This value is a product of bandwidth and distance because there
is a trade off between the bandwidth of the signal and the distance it can be
carried. For example, a common multimode fiber with bandwidth-distance
product of 500 MHz×km could carry a 500 MHz signal for 1 km or a 1000
MHz signal for 0.5 km.

4.Numerical aperture:- Numerical Aperture is the measurement of the

acceptance angle of an optical fiber, which is the maximum angle at which
the core of the fiber will take in light that will be contained within the core.
Taken from the
fiber core axis (center of core), the measurement is the square root of the
squared refractive index of the core minus the squared refractive index of
the cladding
NA = sin(ɵin)

=
 Chapter 3
Wave Propagation
Electromagnetic Waves propagating in an optical fiber consist of :
-TE Modes.
-TM Modes.
-EH and HE Modes.
-Helical EH and HE modes contain both axial electric and magnetic fields.
-The mode can be EH or HE depending upon which component contribute
more to the axial direction

1.Maxewell`s Equation

2. Wave Propagation in Cylindrical Waveguide

 Chapter 4
Experiments

EXP 1.Calculating the Numerical Aperture:

1. Introduction
The numerical aperture (NA) is a measurement of the ability of an optical
fiber to capture light. All fibers have acceptance angle. The sine of the
half of the acceptance angle of a fiber is known as the NA. The NA of the
fiber, and also the acceptance angle, is determined by the ratio of
refractive indices of the optical fiber core and its cladding. Rays entering
the a fiber at a angle greater than the NA will not be reflected internally.

2. Observation:
3. Experimental readings:
S.n Positio Voltage( S.no Positio Voltage
o. n mv) n (mv)
1 91 3.45 25 104 95.78
2 91.5 6.23 26 104.5 105.42
3 92 8.85 27 105 110.23
4 92.5 9.32 28 105.5 100.27
5 93 9.12 29 106 112.54
6 93.5 10.34 30 106.5 134.23
7 94 12.14 31 107 140.63
8 94.5 14.52 32 107.5 152.98
9 95 16.43 33 108 165.23
10 95.5 19.23 34 108.5 177
11 96 23.44 35 109 173.44
12 96.5 25.12 36 109.5 168.12
13 97 30.89 37 110 152.67
14 97.5 33.98 38 110.5 143.26
15 98 35.67 39 111 137.34
16 98.5 38.34 40 111.5 120.78
17 99 39.57 41 112 110.45
18 99.5 47.53 42 112.5 89.32
19 100 52.45 43 113 75.34
20 100.5 57.89 44 114 60.09
21 101.5 60.83 45 115 30.89
22 102.5 70.34 46 118 18.9
23 103 76.89 47 119 7.2
 24 103.5 86.14 48 120 4.4

EXP 2.Mode Field Diameter Of a Single Mode

Fiber
1. Introduction
Mode-field diameter is a measure of the spot size or beam width of light
propagating in a single-mode
fiber. Mode-field diameter is a function of source wavelength, fiber core
radius, and fiber refractive index
profile. The vast majority of the optical power propagates within the fiber
core, and a small portion propagates in the cladding near the core .
Mismatches in mode-field diameter can affect splice loss. Fibers with varying
mode-field diameters also display different bend loss sensitivities.

EXP 3. Refractive Index Profile of a Multimode

Optical Fiber by the Near-Field Scanning
Technique.
 1. Introduction:
The Propagation characteristics of an optical fiber are almost
completely determined by the refractive index Profile (RIP) of the fiber
i.e. the refractive index distribution n(r) across the fiber.
For a given RIP, Solution of the corresponding wave equation will be
yield modal propagation constants , mode fields ,pulse dispersion
characteristics etc of the fiber.
There are many different techniques to measure RIP of Optical fibers,
but the transmitted near field scanning and the refracted near field
scanning form are the two most important technique, TNF scanning is
relatively simpler to implement.

EXP 4.Determining the V Parameter,the core

radius of a Step index Single mode fiber
1. Introduction
A single-mode fiber has a V number that is less than 2.405, for most optical
wavelengths. It will propagate light in a single guided mode.
A multi-mode fiber has a V number that is greater than 2.405, for most
optical wavelength and therefore will propagate in many paths through the
fiber.
The number of modes of multimode fiber cable depends on the
wavelength of light, core diameter and material composition. This can be
determined by the Normalized frequency parameter (V). The V is
expressed as:

Where
d=fiber core diameter
λ=wavelength of light
NA=numerical aperture
 Problems faced

1. As we were trying to set up a optical communication lab from the

scratch without any first hand experience there were a lot of
hardware troubles we had to overcome.
2. We tried to find the required hardware in the local market and
contacted various companies to help us out but they were not
ready to support us on a small scale.
3. We required a dark room to carry out our experiments and store
the required equipments.
4. Optical communication was a new field for us so a lot of time was
taken up for gaining the basic knowledge for the concepts and
then carrying out the experiments
 Conclusion and future work
To conclude, this semester we tried our level best to carry out
experiments and gain knowledge with whatever first hand
experience and whatever hardware was available to us
Although we had some hardware available with the institute with
which’s help we were successfully able to calculate the numerical
aperture of a given fiber but not practically able to execute the
remaining experiments completely.
In future we expect a little more help from the institution to
provide us with the required equipments.

For our future work next semester, we plan to:

1. Go to our respective hometowns and using our resources try to
search for the required equipments to carry out the experiments
further.
2. Demonstrate the various experiments to other students of the
institute for their benefit so as to increase their interest in this
field of communication.
3. Besides practical experiments we would like to do some
research work in optics used in medical sciences.