UNIT-III

OPTICAL FIBERS

INTRODUCTION:
The Information carrying capacity of a telecommunication system is proportional to
its bandwidth, which in turn is proportional to the frequency of the carrier. Fiber optic
communication systems use light as a carrier with the highest frequency among all the practical
signals.
This is why fiber optic communication systems have the highest information carrying
capacity and this is what makes these systems the linchpin of modern telecommunication
systems.

HOW OPTICAL FIBER CONDUCT LIGHT (OR) PROPAGATION OF LIGHT:

 An optical fiber is a thin transparent, flexible strand that consists of a core surrounded by
cladding. The core and cladding of an optical fiber are made from the same material-a
type of glass called silica and they differ only in refractive index (n).
 It is a number that shows how much the material resists the propagation of light.
n = v/ f = velocity of light/velocity of light in the medium

 The different refractive indexes can be achieved by doping silica with different
dopants.
 The concept of total internal reflection used to save the light inside the core of an optical
fiber. To achieve total internal reflection at the core-cladding boundary, the core‟s
refractive index, n1must be greater than cladding refractive index n2.

Structure of optical fiber:

n1 = core refractive index
n2 = cladding refractive
 When the light is incident on the interface between two dielectrics (eg. silica) of different
refractive indices, the part of the ray is reflected in to the first medium and the root is refracted
into the second medium.

LIGHT TRAVELS FROM AIR TO GLASS:

Reflected beam

Incident beam θ3
θ1
air n1 =
1

glass n2 =
1.5

Refracted beam
 (Normal : it is an imaginary line perpendicular to both air and glass.)
When the light travels from low refractive index medium to high refractive index medium,
its refracted beam is bend towards the normal.
According to the law of reflection,
Angle of incidence = Angle of reflection ie.,θ1 = θ2

LIGHT RAY TRAVELS FROM GLASS TO AIR:

Reflected beam

Incident beam θ1

glass n1 = 1.5

air n2 = 1

Refracted beam

θ1 = angle of incidence
θ2= angle of reflection
θ3= angle of refraction
When the light ray enters from high refractive index medium to low refractive index
medium, its refracted beam bent away from the normal.
According to law of reflection,
Angle of incidence=angle of reflection
θ1 = θ2
The incident angle and the refracted angle is related by the law of refraction (or) snell‟s law,
According to snell‟s law,
n1 sin θ1 =n2 sin θ3

When the angle of refraction is 90 , the refracted ray will become parallel to the
interface between the two materials.

When θ3 = 900
then the incident angle (at the particular time) is known as critical angle.

TOTAL INTERNAL REFLECTION:

Total internal reflection is used to keep the light inside an optical fiber. Without
this effect, optical fiber cannot be used as a light guide over a long distance.

“When the light travels from a medium of higher refractive index to a medium of
lower refractive index and it strikes the boundary at more than the critical angle, all the light
will be reflected back to the incident medium, which means it will not penetrate the second
medium”. The phenomenon is called “TOTAL INTERNAL REFLECTION”.
Conditions for the total internal reflection are:

(1) Light should travel from high refractive index material to lower refractive index
material.

(2) Incident angle should be greater than the critical angle.

PROPAGATION (OR) TRANSMISSION OF A LIGHT RAY IN A PERFECT

OPTICAL FIBER
 In a fiber, when the light ray is incident at the core-cladding interface, total internal
reflection will occur since angle of incidence at the core-cladding boundary is greater than
the critical angle and the light gets totally reflected back to the core.

BLOCK DIAGRAM OF FIBER OPTIC COMMUNICTION SYSTEM:

 Information to be conveyed is converted into electrical input signal and enter into the
optical transmitter. This optical transmitter converts electrical signal into optical form
and the resulting light signal is transmitted over optical fiber.
 At the receiver end, an optical detector converts the light back into an electrical signal.
The information signal is extracted from the electrical signal by means of
electronic transmitter.

TRANSMITTER:

 The heart of the transmitter is the light source. The major function of the light source
is
to convert an information signal from its electrical form into light.
 Fiber optic communication system use light source as, either light emitting diodes
(LEDs) (or) laser diodes (LDs). Both are semiconductor device that effectively
converts electrical signal into light.

OPTIC FIBER:
 The transmission medium is fiber optic communication systems is an optic fiber.
 Optical fiber is the transparent flexible filament that guides light from the transmitter
to a receiver.
 Optical fiber is generally made from a type of glass called silica (or) less commonly
from plastic. It is about human hair in thickness.
Fig: block diagram of optical communication systems.

REGENERATOR:
 Regenerator is used to boost an optical signal to transmit information
over a long distance.

 A regenerator accept an optical signal, converts into electrical signal,

makes a decision whether it is bit 0(or)bit 1,generates a new electrical
pulse, converts back into an optical signal, and transmits reshaped signal
farther along the fiber.
 OPTICAL RECEIVER:
 The key component of an optic receiver is its photo detector. The major
function of photo detector is to convert an optical information signal
into an electrical signal.
 Photo detector in today‟s fiber optic communication system is a
semiconductor photodiode (PD)(P-n, PIN or avalanche) and in
some instances, phototransistors and photoconductors .

ADVANTAGES OF OPTICAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEM:

1. E N O R M O U S P O T E N T I A L B A N D W I D T H :

The optical carrier frequency in the range of 10¹³ to 101⁶ Hz (Tera

Hertz range) gives a greater potential transmission bandwidth than metallic cable system.

2. S M A LL S I Z E A N D W E I GH T:
Optical fiber have a very small diameter (diameter of a human hair) .Hence, even
such fibers are converted with protective coatings they are far smaller and lighter than
copper cables.

3. E L E C T R I C AL I S O L A T I O N:

Optical fiber which are fabricated from glass or plastic polymer are electrical
insulators unlike their metallic counter parts, they do not exhibit earth loop and
interface problem. Therefore, Optical fiber transmission is ideally suited for electrical
hazardous environment as the fiber creates no arcing (or) spark hazard at abrasion (or)
short circuits.

4. I M M U N I T Y T O I N T E R F E R E N C E A N D C R O S S T A L K :

Optical fiber forms a dielectric wave guide and free from electromagnetic
interference (EMI), radio frequency interference (RFI) (or) switching transient giving
electromagnetic pulses (EMP).
 Optical fiber transmission requires no shielding from EMI when it is used in
electrically noisy environment.

Fiber cable also not suitable to lightning strikes if used over head rather
underground.

5. S I G N A L S E C U R I T Y :
The light from optical fiber doesn‟t radiate significantly and therefore
likely provide a high degree of signal security.
Transmitted optical signal cannot be trapped by third person. This feature
is attractive for military, banking and general data transmission applications.

6. L O W T R A N S M I S S I O N L O S S :
Optical fiber exhibit low attenuation (or) transmission loss in comparison with
the best copper conductors. Fibers have been fabricated with losses as low as 0.2 dB/km.

7. R U GGE D N E S S A N D F L E X I B I L I T Y :
 Fibers are manufactured with high tensile strengths. The fibers may also be bent
to quite small radii (or) twisted without damage.
 Because of the small sized, weight and flexibility optical fibers are generally superior
in terms of storage, transportation, handling and installation to corresponding copper
cables.
8. S Y S T E M R E L I A B I L I T Y A N D E A S E O F M A I N T E N A N C E :
 Low loss property of optical fiber cables reduces the requirements for intermediate
repeaters (or) line amplifiers to boost the transmitted signal strength with fewer
repeaters reliability is enhanced in comparison to conventional electrical system.
 Life time of optical fibers is 20 to 30 years. It reduces maintenance time and cost.

9. POTENTIAL LOW COST:

 Optical fiber is made from sand, therefore in comparison with copper
conductors, optical fiber offer the potential for low cost line communication.
ACCEPTANCE ANGLE:
Acceptance angle is the maximum angle to the fiber axis at which light may
enter the fiber axis in order to propagate.

 Consider two rays A and B launched in to the fiber. The ray A makes an angle within
the core cladding interface.
 This ray (ray A) making an angle θa to the fiber axis and it gets refracted at the air
core interface and this refracted ray is getting propagated in to the fiber.
 The ray B is launched to fiber at an angle greater than θa say θx. This ray gets
refracted in to the cladding and get lost by radiation.
 θa must be less than the critical angle at the fiber core .

According to snell‟s law of refraction at air –core interface

n0 sin θa =n1 sin ( 900 - υ )
n0 =air refractive index=1
θa =acceptance angle (or) incident angle at air-core
interface n1 =refractive index of core
 900 - υ =refracted angles at air-core interface
n0 sin θa =n1 cos υ
sin θa =n1 cos υ (n0 = 1)
At core-cladding interface , total internal reflection takes place. The angle of incidence at
core- cladding interface should be greater than critical angle υc
Let υ = υc
sin θa =n1 cos υc

NUMERICAL APERTURE
Numerical aperture gives the measure of light gathering ability of an optical
figure. It is referred as figure of merit of the fiber. It is given by,

Most probably light is launched to the fibre from the air medium. Air refractive
index n0 =1.
Fiber optic communication technology operates not with refractive indexes of the
core and cladding themselves but with their difference ∆n.
∆n = n1-n2 … (1) This value is always positive.
 The relative difference of refractive indexes ∆ often called relative index defined as follows

Acceptance angle in terms of

OPTICAL FIBER COMMUNICATION
FIBER TYP ES:
Fibers are sub divided into two groups.

1 . N U M B E R O F M O D E S T H E Y C A N S U P P O R T:

The light can propagate inside an optical fiber only as set of separated beams (or)
rays. These rays (or) beams are called modes. Based on the number of modes that
a fiber can support, it is classified into two types
 Single mode(only one exist within the fiber)
 Multi mode( many modes exist within the fiber)

2 . B A S E D O N R E F R A C T I V E IN D E X P R O F IL E :

 Step index fiber

 Graded index fiber

3 .B A S E D O N N U M B E R O F M O D E S A N D R E F R A C T I V E IN D E X P R O F IL E :

 Single mode step index fiber(SMSI)

 Multi mode step index fiber(MMSI)
 Single mode graded index fiber(SMGI)
 Multi mode graded index fiber(MMGI)

V-NUMBER (OR) NORMALISED FRE QUE NCY PARAME TER:

The number of modes in an optical fiber is determined by V-parameter (or) V-

Number. It is dimension less and it is given by

d = core diameter of fiber

2a = where a is the radius of the optical Fiber
 λ = operating wave length

In terms of NA

STEP INDEX FIBER:

 The optical fiber with a core of constant refractive index n1 , and a cladding of a slightly
lower refractive index n2 is known as step index fiber.
 This is because the refractive profile for this type of fiber makes a step change at the
core cladding interface.
 The refractive index profile may be defined as ,

n(r)= n r<a core

n r cladding

r= radial distance from the center of the

fiber. a = radius of core.
MULTIMODE STEP INDEX FIBER (MMSI):

In the above figure,

 The refractive index of the core is uniform throughout an undergoes an step change at
the cladding boundary .
 The core diameter of MMSI is about 50 -200 m.
 The ray passing through the step index fiber is said to be meridional ray.
 Its core diameter is large enough to allow the propagation of many modes within the
fiber core.
 Bandwidth of multimode fiber is 50 MHZ / km .
 Inter modal dispersion is high due to differing group velocities of propagating mode.
This is inturn restricts the maximum bandwidth attainable with multimode step
index fiber.
 NA is more for MMSI
 MMSI allow the propagation of a finite number of guided modes along the channel. The
number of guided modes is dependent upon the V-parameter
 Ms (no. of modes in step index) =
ADVANTAGES OF MMSI
(1) The use of spatially incoherent optical sources (LED) which cannot be efficiently
coupled to single mode fiber.
(2) Larger numerical aperture, as well as core diameter, facilitating easier coupling
of optical sources.
(3) Lower tolerance requirements on fiber connectors.

SMSI:
Single mode or monomode step index fiber allows the propagation of only
one transverse electromagnetic mode (typically HE₀₀), and hence the core diameter
must be of the order of 2 to 10 micrometer.
Its core diameter is less.It allows only one mode which propagating along the
core axis.
Bandwidth of SMSI is 1GHZ /km. (information carrying capacity is very high)
Low intermodal dispersion (broadening of transmitted pulse) as only one
mode is transmitted
NA is very less for SMSI. Manufacturing was the mode field diameter, MED
rather than the core diameter as a parameter that describes single mode fiber
V- parameter is less than (or) equal to 2.405 V< 2.405
ADVANTAGES OF SMSI:
(1) Used for higher bandwidth application

DISADVANTAGES :
(1) The small core diameter pose problems
with
 Launching light into the fiber
 With field jointing
 Reduced relative refractive index difference present difficulties
in the fabrication process
 Problem:
 A multimode step index fiber with core diameter of 80and a relative index
difference of 1.5% is operating at a wavelength of 0.85 core R.I is 1.48,
estimate (a) the normalized frequency for the fiber (b) the no. of guided
modes.
 Solution:
(a) The normalized freq. (or) Vnumber

(b) Total no. of guided modes

  If V is approximately equal to 76, then nearly 3000 modes are guided by MMSI.

INTERMODAL DISPERSION:*(introduction)
 Pulse broadening or pulse widening caused by mode structure of a light beam inside
the fiber is called modal dispersion or intermodal dispersion.

C= critical mode
2= second order mode
1= first order mode
0= zero order mode

The beams travel at the same velocity but over different distances, they arrive the receiver
end at different times.
The beam propagating along the core-axis reaches the receiver at first when compared to
other higher order beams or modes.
Due to that at the receiver, the recombined pulses are broaden. This broadening effect is
called intermodal dispersion.

HOW INTERMODAL DISPERSSION RESTRICT THE BIT RATE:

Assume that transmitted information rate is 10M bits/s. We need to transmit
10 pulses every second.

Amp

100 200 time (ms)

↔ Transmitted pulse after 1km

 84.7 184.7 28

Amp Pulses after

2km
transmissio
n

After travelling 1km, input pulses broaden due to intermodal dispersion, but it will
not overlap with next pulses.
But after travelling 2km, due to broadening effect, pulses are overlapped. This can be
reduced by reducing the bit rate.
Intermodal dispersion severely limits the bit rate of fiber optic limit. This problem
can be avoided by graded index fiber.

GRADE INDEX FIBER:

The core of the optical fiber is designed with different refractive indexes. So that beam traveling
in the farthest distance (critical mode) does so at highest velocity and beam travelling the shortest
distance propagate at the slowest velocity.(n=c/v) Such fibers are called graded INDEX (UTI) FIBERS.
In liraded index (gradual increase of refractive index) fibers do not have a constant refractive
index in the core (in homogeneous core) but a decreasing core index n(r) with radial distance from a
maximum of n1 at the fiber axis to a constant value n2 beyond the core radius a in the cladding .
 Fig: curved ray path G.I. fiber
 The mode propagating along the centre line of a graded index fiber- the shortest
distance- travels at the lowest speed because it meets the highest refractive index.
 The mode or beam propagating closer to the fiber cladding- the longer distance-
propagates at the higher speed because it meets a lower refractive index.
 Different modes arrive at the receiver and more or less simultaneously. Hence inter modal
dispersion will be reduced and the bit rate will be increased.

where ∆ = relative refractive

index difference.
α = profile parameter
then the R.I profile is a step index profile
α = 1, then the R.I profile is a
triangular profile α = 2, then
the R.I profile is a parabolic
profile.
Fig : R.I profile for different values of α
The graded index profiles which at present produces the best result is parabolic profile

STURCTURE OF MMGI:

Fig: R.I profile and ray transmission in a multimode graded index fiber
  Refractive index is a function of the radial distance from the centre of the fiber or core axis to
the cladding
 The diameter of the core is about 50
 The light propagating through graded index fiber is said to be skew rays

Fig: A helical skew ray path within a graded index fiber

 Bandwidth is from 200 Mhz/km to 600MHZ/KM.
 MMGI fibers exhibit for less intermodal dispersion than multimode step index fibers due to their
refractive index profile.
 NA is very less compared with SI fiber.
 MMGI allow the propagation of a finite number of guided modes along the channel. The
number of guided mode is dependent up on the V-parameter.

Where α = profile parameter

SMGI:
Graded index fibers may also be designed for single mode operation. The normalized frequency V
to support single mode is graded index fiber is given by,

Problem
A graded index fiber has a core with a parabolic refractive index profile which has a
diameter of 50µm.The Fiber has a numerical aperture of 0.2. Estimate the total number of
guided modes propagating in the fiber when it is operating at a wave length of 1µm.

The mode volume may be obtained from parabolic path

Hence the Fiber supports approximately 247 guided modes.

Intermodal Dispersion:
Pulse broadening due to intermodal dispersion results from the propagation
delay differences between modes with in a multimode fiber
Intermodal modal dispersion of MMSI restricts the bit rate of optical
communication system
This can be reduced by adoption of an optimum refractive index profile which is
provided by the parabolic profile of GI fiber. Hence over all dispersion of MMGI is
100 times less than that of dispersion of MMSI

Expression for RMS pulse broadening of Multimode stop index fiber (MMSI):
 The ray propagating along the core axis is referred as axial ray (or) faster mode.
The time taken for the axial ray to travel along a fiber length L gives the minimum
delay time T min.

n1 = R.I. of core
c = Velocity of light in vacuum
The ray propagating at the critical angle Φc is called as slower mode (or) Extreme
meridional ray. The time taken for the Extreme meridional ray to travel along the
fiber length L gives the maximum delay time T max

Using Snell‟s law at core- cladding interface,

 The delay difference б Ts between the meridional ray and the axis ray may be subtracting
(1) from (3)

Where ∆= relative refractive index difference

Where NA is the Numerical aperture for the fiber,

Mean value M1
Mean Square value M2
This is the expression for RMs pulse broadening in step index fiber.

For multimode graded index fiber

 The dramatic improvement in multimode fiber band width achieved with a parabolic (or) near
parabolic refractive index profile is highlighted by consideration of reduced delay difference between
fastest and slowest mode for their graded index fiber δTg .

The above relation is showing, the slowest mode should travel to reduce the intermodal dispersion.

Intra Modal Dispersion (or) Chromatic dispersion

 This type of dispersion may occur in all types of optical fiber and results from the finite
spectral width of the optical sources.
 Intra modal dispersion composed of two mechanism.
1. Material dispersion
2. Waveguide dispersion

1. Material dispersion

 Material dispersion is caused by the wave length dependence of the silica‟s refractive
index. ie n(λ)
( refractive depends on λ of incoming light)

 An information carrying light pulse contains different wavelength because a light source
radiates light of finite spectral width (of difference W.L.)

C C
Velocity of light within the medium V = here V = ,
n n( )
  Therefore different wavelength component (or) spectral component will travel within fiber at
different velocities and will arrive at the fiber (or) receiver t different times, thus causing the
spread of pulse.
 This type of pulse broadening (or) spreading is due to material, hence the name Material
dispersion.
Expression for Material dispersion parameter
A material is said to exhibit material dispersion when the second differential of the
refractive index n w.r.to wavelength λ is not Zero.
i.e.

Let Vg is the group velocity. The various Spectral components of light source travels
inside fiber at different velocity that velocity is known as group velocity

Let g is the group delay. Group is due to different spectral component travels at
different speed and therefore each will reach the receiver end at different time.( ie delay)
 Material dispersion along the fiber length L is represented as τm

If RMS spectral width of light source is σλ and mean wavelength is λ, then the material dispersion
τm may be obtained by using Taylor series is

Negelect higher order terms

This is the expression for material dispersion

Material dispersion parameter:

The following graph shows the variation of the material dispersion parameter M with wavelength
of pure silica

 It may be observed that the material dispersion tends to zero in the longer wavelength region
around 1.34 m ( for Para silica)
 Material dispersion can also be reduced by using narrow spectral width source like
injection laser rather than LED

2. Wave guide dispersion:

 It is caused by the fact that light is guided by as mature (due to wave guide structure)
 After the light pulse enter into the single mode fiber, it is distributed between core and
cladding. The major portion is travel within the core, the rest with in the cladding.
 Both portions propagate at different velocities since the core and Cladding have different
refractive index as.
 Cladding n2 n1>n2

More velocity core n1

Less velocity resulting pulse spreading due to

Waveguide structure

Expression:

Wave guide dispersion is negligible in multimode fiber. But it is important in single mode
fiber. For a single mode fiber whose propagation constant is , it exhibits wave guide dispersion
when

The normalized propagation constant b is given by

The expression for group delay due to wave guide dispersion is
W.k.t the V parameter is given by

V K ( approximately equal)

There τωg is given by

The expression for wave guide dispersion is

ATTENUATION:
 Attenuation means signal less or transmission less.
 It is an important consideration in the design of optical communication system, since
it plays a major role in determining the maximum transmission distance between a
transmitter and receiver.
 The basic attenuation mechanisms are
 (a)Absorption loss (b) Scattering loss (c) Radiative loss

 The unit of attenuation is decibel.

 As the light travels along a fiber, its power decreases exponentially with distance.
Let P(o) =Optical power at the origin (distance
z=0) P(z) = Optical power at a distance z.

When αp =fiber attenuation coefficent

Usually attenuation is measured in terms of db/km

Attenuation in nepers

OPTICAL FIBER ATTENUATION AS A FUNCTION OF W.L :

 Attenuation is more at 1400nm due to Absorption by water molecules (or) OH ions.

ABSORPTION:
Absorption of light signal inside an optical fiber is caused by three mechanisms.
Absorption by atomic defects in the fiber materials.
Intrinsic Absorption by the basic constituent of fiber material.
Extrinsic Absorption by the impure atoms in the glass material.

Absorption by atomic defects in the fiber materials:

Atomic defect means imperfection in the atomic structure of the fiber material. Examples are:
Missing molecules
Oxygen defects in the glass structure.
 Absorption losses due to atomic defects is very less compared to intrinsic &
extrinsic absorption.
 This absorption loss is important when the fiber is exposed in
 Nuclear reactor environment
 Ionizing radiation environment
 Medical radiation therapies
 Space
mission
 Total radiation energy received by the fiber is (silica
fiber) Rad (si) = 0.01 J/Kg
When the amount of received radiation energy increases, then it will affect the fiber structure.

INTRINSIC ABSORPTION:
The intrinsic absorption has two types:
1.Intrinsic absorption due to ultra violet region
2.Intrinsic absorption due to Infra red region.

1. Intrinsic absorption due to ultra violet region:

  Intrinsic absorption results from electronic absorption bands in the ultra violet region and from
atomic vibration bands in the near infra red region.
 Absorption occurs when a photo interacts with an electron in the valence band and excites it to a
higher energy level.
 The ultra violet absorption for both amorphous and crystal line materials are given by

2. Intrinsic absorption due to Infra red region:

 In the near infra red region above 1.24m, the optical waveguide loss is predominantly
determined by the presence of OH ions and inherent infrared absorption of the constituent
material.
 This absorption is due to interaction between the vibrating bond and the electromagnetic field
of the optical signal results in transfer energy from the field to bond, thereby giving rise to
absorption.
 The infrared absorption in db/km for GeO2- SiO2 glass fiber is

Extrinsic Absorption by the impure atoms present in the glass material:

This absorption is mainly due to
 Transition metal ions such as Iron, Chromium, Cobalt and Copper Presence of OH
ions (water)
Direct melting method is one of fabrication method of optical fiber. The starting material
used in this method contains transition metal ion impurities.
If the presence of transition metal ions is 10 parts per billion, then the loss is 1 to 10
db/km. This loss is due to charge transition from one ion to another.
Hydrolysis method is one of the fabrication process of optical fiber. The streaming
materials used in this method is SiCl₃, GeCl₃, &PoCl₂. During hydrolysis process ie., when these
materials.
 The presence of OH⁻ ions in the fiber during fabrication process is difficult to remove and it will
cause losses upto 20db/km.
 OH⁻ ions results large absorption peaks occurring at 1400, 950 and 725nm.
 OH⁻ ions introduce 0.5db/km in the 1300nm and 0.3db/km in the 1550nm.

SCATTERING LOSS:
A beam propagating at the critical angle will change direction after it meet obstacle. Therefore, the light
will be scattered. The scattering effects prevent the attainment of TIR at the core cladding boundary
resulting in power loss. This loss is known as SCATTERING LOSS.

 Linear scattering losses

 Non-linear scattering losses

Linear scattering losses:

Linear scattering mechanism causes transfer of optical power from one mode to different mode. This
process tend to result on attenuation of the transmitted light as the transfer may be to a leaky mode
(or) radiation mode which does not continue to propagate within the fiber . There are two types of
linear scattering losses.

1. Rayleigh Scattering
2. Mie Scattering

RAYLEIGH SCATTERING:
 Refractive index fluctuation arises due to density and compositional variations during
cooling process.
 Compositional variations can be reduced by improved fabrication. But density
fluctuation cannot be avoided.
 The scattering due to density fluctuation, which is in almost all directions, produces
 1
an attenuation proportional to following the Rayleigh scattering formula. For
4
single glass component, it is given by,

δR= Rayleigh scattering co - efficient

λ = Optical wavelength, n=R.I of the medium

ρ = Photo electric co-efficient, βc = Isothermal compressibility,
Tf= Fictive temperature, k= Boltzmann constant

MIE SCATTERING:
 This is due to non-perfect cylindrical structure, irregularities at the core-cladding interface, core-
cladding refractive index differences along the fiber length, diameter fluctuations, strains and
bubbles.
 The scattering due to above defects scattered energy in forward direction.
Mie scattering may be reduced by
(a) Removing imperfections due to the glass manufacturing process. (b) Carefully controlled
extrusion and coating of thefiber
(c) Increasing fiber guidance by increasing the ∆.
NON-LINEAR SCATTERING:
 Non – linear scattering occurs due to non-linear effects of the optical fiber. Non-linear effect
means power is not directly proportional to input power.
 Due to non-linear effects optical power transferred either in forward direction (or) backward
direction. There are 2 types of non-linear scattering.
1. Stimulated brillouin
scattering
2. Stimulated raman scattering,
(both observed only in
SMF)

Stimulated brillion scattering (SBS):

  This scattering is mainly due to thermal molecular vibration within the fiber.
 This produces energy transfer in backward direction. Therefore, the frequency shift is
maximum in backward direction reducing to zero in the forward direction making SBS a
mainly backward process. Scattering process generate optical phonons.
 Brillouin scattering is only significant above a threshold power density. The threshold power Pв

d = core diameter;
λ = operating wavelength;
α(db) = attenuation/km ;
u = source bandwidth
 This scattering becomes dominant when power levels above 10mW in single mode fiber.
Stimulated Raman scattering:
 SRS occur in both the forward and backward direction in an optical fiber.
 This scattering is similar to SBS, except that acoustic phonon (acoustic frequency) is generated
instead of optical phonon, in the scattering process.
 The threshold optical power levels for SRS is

RADIATIVE LOSSES (OR) BENDING LOSSES:

Whenever the bends and curves will be in the path of optical ray, radiative losses will occur.
There are two types of bending. (a). Macroscopic bending losses (b). Microscopic bending losses.

Macroscopic bending losses (or) Large radius losses :

These occur when the radius of curvature of bend is greater than the fiber diameter. When the
radius of curvature of bend decreases on curvature of fiber increases, the loss increases exponentially
up to a critical radius of curvature.
For multimode fiber the critical radius of curvature of bend Rcm is given by
 For single mode

Radiation loss at fiber ends

Minimization of this type losses is done by,

(i) fiber with large relative refractive index difference

(ii) operating at shortest wavelength is possible.

Microbending loss (or) Modecoupling loss:

 Microbending introduces from the fiber when it is incorporated into cables.
This type of bending introduces slight surface imperfection which can cause
mode coupling between adjacent modes.

 The losses due to non-uniform pressure during cabling is referred as cabling

(or)packaging losses.
  The loss depends on the fiber deformation, length of fiber and the optical power
distribution.

 Microbending losses proportional to the number of modes propagating through the

fiber and inversely proportional to wavelength.

Core –cladding loss:

The core and cladding have difference refractive indices because they are having
different composition. Therefore core and cladding have different attenuation coefficients α1
and α2 respectively.
For step index fiber, the loss for a mode of order (V1m)

w.k. that ( Pcore /P) = 1 -(Pcladd/P)

The above equation becomes,
α(V1m) = α1 (1- Pclad/P) + α2 (Pclad/P)
The total loss of the fiber can be found by summing over all modes weighted by the fractional
power in that mode.

COMPARISION BETWEEN STEP AND GRADED INDEX FIBER

STEP INDEX FIBER GRADED INDEX FIBER

1. The refractive index of the core is uniform
throughout and undergoes an abrupt (or) step
change at the cladding boundary.
2. The diameter of the core is about 50-200 m in
the case of single mode fiber.
The refractive index of the core is made to vary
in the parabolic manner such that the maximum
refractive index is present at the centre of the
core.
The diameter of the core is about 50 m in the
case of multimode fiber.
3. The light rays propagating through it are in the The light rays propagating through it are in the
form of meridional rays which will cross the fiber form of skew rays (or) helical rays which will not
axis during every reflection at the core-cladding cross the fiber axis at any time and are
boundary and are propagating in a zig-zag manner. propagating around the fiber axis in a helical (or)
spiral manner.
4. Signal distortion is more in multimode step Signal distortion is very low because of self
index fiber since the rays reflected at high angles focusing effect. Here the light rays travel at
or the higher order modes travel a greater distance different speeds in different paths of the fiber
than the rays reflected at low angles or the lower because the refractive index varies throughout the
order modes, to reach the exit end of the fiber. So fiber. As a result light rays near the outer edge
high angle rays arrive later than the low angle travel faster than the light rays near the centre of
rays. Hence the signal pulses are broadened out the core. In effect, light rays are continuously
and distortion takes place. But this distortion does refocused as they travel down the fiber and almost
not take place in single index fiber. all the rays reach the exit end of the fiber at the
same time due to the helical path of the light
propagation.

5. Bandwidth is about 50 MHz-km for multimode Bandwidth is from 200 MHz-km to 600 MHz-km.
step index fibers. But for single mode index
fibers, the bandwidth is more than 1 GHz-km.
6. Attenuation is more for multimode step index Attenuation is less.
fibers but for single mode step index fiber, it is
very less.
7. Numerical Aperture is more for multimode step Numerical Aperture is less.
index fibers but for single mode step index fiber,
it is very less.
 SINGLE MODE FIBER MULTIMODE FIBER

1. In single mode fiber only one mode (LPⁿ₀ mode
or HE₀₀ mode) can propagate through the
fiber.
2. The condition for the single mode operation is
given by the V number of the fiber which is
defined as V such that V 2.405.
Here a = radius of the core of the fiber;
n₀=refractive index of the core; λ=wavelength
Multimode fiber allows a large number of paths
or modes for the light rays travelling through it.
Here the V-number is greater than 2.405. Total
number of modes „N‟ propagating through a
given multimode step index fiber is given by
N is the diameter of the core of the fiber. For
multimode graded index fiber having parabolic

of light propagating through the refractive index profile core, N= which is half
the number supported by a multimode step index
fiber;∆=relative index difference = where
fiber. taking into account of the 2 possible
n₁= refractive index of cladding. When
polarizations, the maximum number of
V=2.405, then the wavelength is called cutoff
propagating modes is doubled such that Nstep
wavelength of the fiber, which is the minimum
3. The single mode fiberbehas smaller core index = V², Ngraded index= V²/2
wavelength that can transmitted through the Generally in multimode fiber the core diameter
diameter
fiber. (10) and the difference between the and the relative refractive index difference are
refractive indices of the core and the cladding larger than the single mode fiber.

4. is
In very small.
practice there is no dispersion (i.e. no Even though there is self focusing effect there is
degradation of signal during travelling through signal degradation due to multimode dispersion
the fiber) and material dispersion.
5. Since the information transmission capacity in Due to large dispersion and attenuation of the
optical fiber is inversely proportional to signal the multimode fibers are less suitable for
dispersion, the single mode fibers are more communication. Anyhow these fibers are

6. suitable
Launchingforof
long distance
light communication.
into single mode fibers and generally
Launchingused in the
of light local
into areaand
fibers networks.
jointing of two
jointing of two fibers are very difficult. fibers are easy in these fibers.

7. Fabrication is very difficult and so the fiber is Fabrication is less difficult and so the fiber is not
so costly. costly.