UNIT 1 INTRODUCTION TO OPTICAL FIBERS

 General Optical Fiber Communication System

 Elements of an Optical Fiber Transmission
Link
 Evolution of Fiber Optic Systems
 Operating range of Optical Fiber System
 Information (Voice, Data, Video) is transmitted on a light
beam through fiber cables
 Key sections: Transmitter, Channel and Receiver
 Information can be converted to electrical signal by a
Transducer

Transmitter
 Drive circuit and Light source
 Drive circuit-Drives electrical signal into light source
 Light sources-LED, LASER
 Light Source
- GaAlAs alloy : 800-900 nm region
- InGaAsP alloy : 1100-1600nm region
- LEDs- Cheaper , Short distance
- LASER- Long distance

 Fiber Flylead - Couple light signal to channel

 Connector- Temporary joint to join 2 fibers
 Optical Splice - Permanent joint to join 2 fibers
 Optical Coupler or Beam Splitter – Pass optical signal to other
equipments
 Optical signal launched into fiber becomes attenuated and
distorted due to scattering, absorption and dispersion
mechanisms

Regenerator
 Optical Receiver, Electronics circuit, Optical Transmitter
 Restores signal shape characteristics
 Converts Optical signal to electrical signal and then
back to optical signal
Receiver
 Photo detector, Amplifier and Signal Restorer
 Photodetector - Converts optical signal to electrical signal
- PIN diode, APD
 Amplifier- Amplifies weak electrical signal
 Signal Restorer- Reduces SNR
 WDM-Boost fiber transmission capacity
 Used to transmit several independent information
streams over same fiber
 Optical Multiplexer- Combines N independent
optically formatted information streams and sent over
a same fiber
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First Operating Window
Wavength - Centered at 850 nm
Fibers - Silica Multimode fibers
Sources - GaAlAs based sources
Photo detector - Silicon photo detectors
Optical amplifiers - GaAlAs based amplifiers
Bit rate - 45 Mb/s
Repeater spacing - 10 km
Applications
 Initial Telephone System
 Intercity applications
Second Operating Window
Wavelength - Centered at 1310 nm
Fibers - Single and Multimode fibers
Sources - Alloys of InGaAsP
Photo detectors - Alloys of InGaAs
Optical amplifiers - PDFA (Praseodymium doped fiber
amplifiers)
Bit rate - 100 Mb/s
Repeater spacing - 40 km
Applications
 Intercity applications
 Local Area Network
Third Operating Window
Wavelength - Centered at 1500 nm
Fibers - Dispersion shifted fibers
Sources - Alloys of InGaAsP
Photo detector - InGaAs alloy
Optical amplifiers - EDFA (Erbium doped fiber
amplifiers)
Bit rate - 2.5 Gb/s
Repeater spacing - 90 km
Applications
 Under sea transmission links
 Metropolitan Networks
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