Advantages of Optical Fibers

• Long Distance Tx: the lower TX losses in fibers compared to

copper wires allow data to be sent over longer distances.

• Large Capacity: fibers have wider B.Ws than copper wires, so

that more information is sent over a single physical line.

• Small Size and Low Weight: the low weight and the small
dimensions of fibers offer an advantage over heavy, bulky wire
cables in crowded underground city ducts or in ceiling‐mounted
cable trays.

• Immunity to Electrical Interference: the dielectric nature of

optical fibers makes them immune to the electromagnetic
interference effects.

• Enhanced Safety: optical fibers do not have the problems of

ground loops, sparks, and potentially high voltages inherent in
copper lines.

• Increased Signal Security: A signal is well‐confined within the

fiber and an opaque coating around the fiber absorbs any signal
emissions.
Key Elements of Optical Fiber Systems
con.
• Analogous to copper cables, the installation of optical fiber
cables can be:

Aerial.
In ducts.
Undersea.
buried directly in the ground.

Reflection and Refraction

 External Reflection: when light traveling in a
certain medium is reflected off an optically denser
material (one with a higher refractive index).
 Internal Reflection: the reflection of light off of less
optically dense material.
 As the incidence angle Ф𝟏in an optically denser
material becomes larger, the refracted angle
approaches 𝝅/𝟐.
 For a glass-to-air interface/surface, if the incidence
angle Ф𝟏is increased, a point will eventually be
reached where the light ray in air is parallel to the
glass surface, this point is known as critical angle of
incidence Ф𝒄.
 Total Internal reflection: when the incidence angle
Ф𝟏 >Ф𝒄, the total internal reflection occurs.
2 Step Index Fiber Structure
There are two types of fiber:

 Step index fiber: the core’s radius a has a constant

refractive index n1, surrounded by a cladding of slightly
lower index n2 = n1(1 - Δ).
Δ is the core-cladding index difference or the index
difference.
Typical Δ values range from 1-3 % for MM step-index
fibers and from 0.2- 1.0 % for SM step-index fibers.

 Graded index fiber: the index varies with the core

radius fiber.

The two types of rays that can propagate in a fiber are:

 Meridional rays.

 Skew rays.
Skew rays are not confined to a single plane, but instead
tend to follow a helical type path along the fiber as
shown.

Meridional rays are confined to the meridional planes of

the fiber, which are the planes that contain the axis of
symmetry of the fiber.

Meridional rays can be divided into two general classes:

   Bound rays that are tapped in the core and

propagate along the fiber axis.

   Unbound rays that are refracted out of the fiber

core.
Section Summary
 An optical fiber is a dielectric waveguide that
operates at optical frequency and it is normally
cylindrical in form.

 There are two types of fiber, Step index fiber and

Graded index fiber either maybe, single mode or
multimode fibers.

 The two types of rays that can propagate in a fiber

are, Meridional rays and Skew rays.

 Skew rays are not confined to a single plane, but

instead tend to follow a helical type path along the
fiber.

 Meridionalraysareconfinedtothemeridionalplaneso
fthefiber,whicharetheplanesthatcontaintheaxisof
symmetry of the fiber.
  Meridional rays can be, Bound rays that are tapped
in the core and propagate along the fiber axis, or
Unbound rays that are refracted out of the fiber
core.

 Construction
 • The dimension of the core diameter is a few
wavelengths (usually 8–12).
•
Theindexdifferencebetweenthecoreandthecladding
issmall(0.2to1.0%).
• The core diameter is just below the cutoff of the
1st higher-order mode: V < 2.405.

 The MFD is used to predict:  Fiber splice loss.

 Bending loss.
 Cutoff wavelength.
 Waveguide dispersion.

The requirements for selecting fiber are:

1. It must be possible to make long, thin, flexible

fibers from the material.

2. The material must be transparent at a particular

optical wavelength in order for the fiber to guide
light efficiently.

3. Physically compatible materials that have slightly

different refraction indices for the core and
cladding must be available.
Incorporating rare earth elements (atomic number 57-
71) into a normally passive glass gives the resulting
material

new optical and magnetic properties.

• Thesenewpropertiesallowthematerialtoperform:
Amplification.

Attenuation.
Phase retardation on the light passing through it.

• Doping can be carried out for silica, telluride, and

halide glasses.

Two basic techniques are used in the fabrication:

The vapor phase oxidation process. The direct melt

methods.

The fiber are made from a rod or tube called preform,

by using the equipment shown in Fig.

• The tight buffered cable are used indoors.

• Theloosetubestructureisintendedforlonghauloutdoor
application.
Indoor Cable Designs
• It can be used for:
Interconnecting instruments.
For distributing signals among office users.
For connections to printers or servers.
For short patch cords in telecommunication
equipment racks.

 Attenuation is an important issue in optical fibers

since it determines the max. possible separation
between Tx. and Rx. that could be used without
using amplifiers or repeaters.

 Attenuation has a great influence on system cost

since amplifiers and repeaters are expensive to
fabricate, install and maintain.

 The basic attenuation mechanisms are: 

Absorption.

 Scattering.

 Radiative losses of optical energy.

 Absorption is related to fiber material.

 Scattering is related to fiber material and structure

imperfections in optical waveguide.
Absorption is caused by three mechanisms:

   Absorption by atomic defects (imperfections in

the atomic structure of the fiber material) in the
glass composition e.g. missing molecules, oxygen
defects in the glass, ..etc.

   Extrinsic absorption by impurity atoms in the

glass material.

   Intrinsic absorption by the basic constituent

atoms of fiber material.

 Impurity absorption losses occur either because:

 Electron transition between ion’s energy levels.
 Charge transitions between ions.

 Scattering losses arises from:

 Microscopic variations in material density. 
Compositional fluctuations.
 Structural inhomogeneities.
 Defects occurring during fiber manufacture.

• The losses of MMFs are higher than of SMFs this is due

to:
 Higher dopant concentrations and scattering loss due
to greater compositional
fluctuations in multi-mode fibers.

 Multi-mode fibers are subject to higher order mode

losses owing to perturbations at the core-cladding
interface.

Radiative losses occur when an optical fiber undergoes a

bend of finite radius of

curvature.

Fibers have two types of curvatures:

 Macroscopic bends with radii larger than fiber

diameter.
 Random microscopic bends of the fiber when fibers
are incorporated into cables.

•
As the radius of curvature decreases the loss increases
exponentially, and at a critical radius the curvature loss
becomes observable.
Optical power escapes from tightly bent fibers
 Higher order modes will radiate out the fiber first,
because they are bound less tightly to the fiber
core than lower order modes.

 Thus, the number of supported modes by a curved

fiber is less than in a straight fiber.

 The effective # of modes in a curved MMF of radius

a is:

 𝜶 is graded index profile, ∆ is core-cladding index

difference, 𝒏𝟐 is cladding refractive
𝟐𝝅
indexand𝒌 = .𝝀

 Signal dispersion is a consequence of factors such

as:
 Intermodal delay effects (modal delay).
 Intramodal dispersion effects (chromatic
dispersion).  Polarization-mode dispersion effects.

 Higher order dispersion effects.

 These distortion can be explained by examining the

behavior of the group velocities (speed at which
energy in a particular mode travels along the fiber)
of the guided modes

 Radiative losses occur when an optical fiber undergoes

a bend of finite radius of curvature.
 Fibers have two types of curvatures Macroscopic
bends, Random microscopic bends.

 Optical signals weaken from attenuation mechanisms

and broaden due to dispersion effects as they travel
along the fiber as shown.

 Signal dispersion is a consequence of factors such as

modal delay, chromatic dispersion, Polarization-mode
dispersion effects, and Higher order dispersion effects.

 Modal delay appears only in MMFs and it is a result of

each mode having a different value of the group
velocity at a single frequency.

 Intramodal dispersion is pulse spreading within a SM,

this spreading arises from the finite spectral emission
width of optical sources.

 Chromatic dispersion are Material dispersion,

Waveguide dispersion.

 Polarization-mode dispersion results because light

signal energy in a single mode fiber has two
orthogonal polarization modes.

 Material dispersion occurs because the index of

refraction varies as a function of λ.

 In SMFs waveguide dispersion and material

dispersion are of the same order of

magnitude.
 To reduce the effects of fiber nonlinearities, fiber
designers developed the nonzero dispersion-shifted
fibers(NZDSF) which have small amount of +ve or
-ve dispersion throughout the C-band.

 The cutoff wavelength for the 1st higher order

mode (LP11) separates the SM from the MM
regions.

 Macrobending and microbending losses show up as

rapid increase in attenuation when the fiber is bent
smaller than a certain bend radius.

 The fibers discussed so far are designed to transmit

light with minimal change in the signal fidelity.

 Specialty fibers are designed to interact with light

and manipulate or control some clcs of the optical
signal.

 For light-control applications a specialty fiber can

Be insinsitive to bends, Maintain polarization
states, Redirect specific wavelengths, Provide high
attenuation for fiber terminations.