Optical Communications

Analysis of transmission systems

2007-2008

Henrique Salgado
hsalgado@fe.up.pt

Point-to-point system

• The project of a point-to-point link involves, in

general, many interrelated variables: fiber, optical
source and photodetector. Hence the design and
analysis of the system may require several
iterations before the they completed satisfactorily.

• System requirements:
– The desired (or possible) transmission distance
– The data rate or channel bandwidth
– The bit-error rate (BER)

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Point-to-point link

• Components
– Optical fiber
• Multimode or monomode
• Step/graded-index
• Interrelation with optical source and fiber dispersion

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Point-to-point link

• LED MM fiber
– Relative index difference !
• Higher ! means more injected power but higher
dispersion

• LD MM fiber
– Maximum transmission rate ! distance is maximum
– Less injected power
– Design of transmitter more complex
– Fiber splices more critical

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Link analysis

Two types of analysis are usually carried out to ensure

the required system performance is achieved:

– Link Power Budget

– Rise-Time Budget

αf (dB/km): fiber loss coefficient

lc (dB): connector insertion loss lsp (dB): splice loss
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Link power budget

– The transmission range of the system is obtained taking

into consideration:
• Power margin between the coupled power at transmitter and
minimum required power at the receiver
• Loss present in the link

Pout
Loss = 10 log
Pin

Ps (dB): coupled power into the fiber by the optical source

Pr (dB): Sensitivity of the receiver

PT (dB): Total loss

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Link power budget

PT = Ps − Pr
= 2lc + αf × L + system margin
– Example:
• Bit rate 20 Mb/s, BER = 10-9
• PIN @ 850 nm, Pr = - 42 dBm
• LED @ -13 dBm coupled power into fiber

PT = −12 + 42 = 29 dB
2 conectors : 1 dB/conector
system margin = 6 dB

29 dB = 2 dB + αf L + 6 dB

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Link power budget

αf = 3.5 dB/km ⇒ L = 6 km

– power budget plot

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Rise-time budget

• The dispersion analysis in digital systems is

equivalent to assessing the rise time of the link.
In the power budget we neglect the dispersion effect, which
is the same as consider the bandwidth of the system to be
large enough to be able to transmit the required bit rate. !

The dispersion reduces the available bandwidth which may

limit not only the transmission rate, but also the sensitivity
of the receiver and consequently the power budget due to
intersymbol interference.
!"
# $1/2
tsys = t2i = t2tx + t2rx + t2mod + t2mat
i

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Rise-time budget

• Empirical criteria
– NRZ: tsys < 0.7Tb , Tb : bit period
< 0.7/B, B : Bit rate
– RZ: tsys < 0.35Tb , = 0.35/B

• Relation between bandwidth and rise time of Rx

– assume a low-pass filter of first-order
– rise-time measured between 10 and 90%
– the response to a step input, u(t), is
! "
g(t) = 1 − e−2πBrx t u(t)
trx = Brx ,
350
Brx in MHz and trx in nanoseconds
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Rise-time budget

• Material dispersion
tmat = σλ |Dmat |(λ)L

!": spectral width of the source (nm)

Dmat: material dispersion parameter (ps/(nm·km))
L: fiber length (km)

• Modal dispersion
– empirical expression for the bandwidth BM in a link of
length L
B0
BM (L) = , 0.5 ≤ q ≤ 0.1 (typical q = 0.7)
Lq

B0: bandwidth of 1 km length of cable

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Rise-time budget

• Relation between fiber rise time (modal dispersion)

and the 3-dB bandwidth
– assume the optical power emerging from the fiber has a
Gaussian temporal response
1 2 2
g(t) = √ e−t /2σ
2πσ
– taking the Fourier transform
1 2 2
G(ω) = √ e−ω σ /2
2π
– the time to t1/2 for the pulse to reach its half-maximum
value, g(t1/2 ) = 0.5g(0) , is t1/2 = (2 ln 2)1/2 σ

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Fiber rise time

– Full width of the pulse at half-maximum tFWHM

tF W HM = 2t1/2 = 2σ(2 ln 2)1/2

• 3-dB optical bandwidth

– frequency at which the received optical power has fallen
to 0.5 of the zero frequency
2
σ 2 /21
e−ω =
2
1 (2 ln 2)1/2
f3dB =
2π σ
2 (ln 2)2 0.44
f3dB = =
π tF W HM tF W HM
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Rise-time budget

– Using BM, defined previously, as the 3-dB bandwidth of

the fiber and letting tFWHM be the rise time for modal
dispersion we obtain
0.44 0.44Lq
tmod = =
BM B0
– If tmod is expressed in nanoseconds and BM is given in
Megahertz, then
440Lq
tmod =
B0
! " # " #$1/2
440Lq 350
tsys = ttx + Dmat σλ L +
2 2 2 2
+
B0 Brx

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Example

– LED: ttx = 15 ns, ! = 40 nm

– Dispersion Dmat (850 nm) = 0.0875 ns/(nm km)
tmat = 21 ns
– Receiver: Brx = 25 MHz, trx = 350/Brx
trx = 14 ns

– MM fiber: B0 = 400 MHz km (q = 0.7)

tmod = 3.9 ns
! "1/2
tsys = (15 ns)2 + (21 ns)2 + (3.9 ns)2 + (14 ns)2
= 30 ns
0.7
tsys < = 35 ns
20 × 106

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Example

– For the 20 Mb/s NRZ data stream tsys falls below the
maximum allowable rise time degradation. System is
not dispersion limited but rather power limited.

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