Advanced Optical Communication

Assignment – I Due date: 19 September 2020

Q.1. Calculate the carrier frequency for optical communication systems operating at 0.88,
1.3 and 1.55 µm.

Q.2. What are the energies in eV of light at wavelengths 850, 1310, 1490 and 1550 nm?

Q.3. Calculate the transmission distance over which the optical power will attenuate by a
factor of 10 for three fibers with losses of 0.2, 20 and 2000 dB/km.

Q.4. What is the duration of a bit for each of the following three signals which have bit
rates of 64 kb/s, 5 Mb/s and 10Gb/s.

Q.5. (a) Convert the following absolute power gains to decibel power gains: 10-3, 0.3, 1,
4, 10, 100, 500.

(b) Convert the following decibel power gains to absolute power gains: -30dB, 0 dB,
13 dB, 30 dB.

Q.6. (a) Convert the following absolute power levels to dBm values: 1 pW, 1 nW, 1 mW,
10 mW, 50 mW.

(b) Convert the following dBm values to power values in mW: -13dBm, -6 dBm, 6
dBm, 17 dBm.

Q.7. Assume that a digital communication system can be operated at a bit rate of up to
1% of the carrier frequency. How many channels at 64 kb/s can be transmitted over a
microwave carrier at 5 GHz and an optical carrier at 1.55 µm?

Q.8. A 1-hour lecture script is stored on the computer hard disk in ASCII format.
Estimate the total number of bits assuming a delivery rate of 200 words per minute
and on average 5 letters per word. How long will it take to transmit the script at a bit
rate of 1 GB/s?

Q.9. Consider 2 windows, 1200-1400 nm and 1450-1650 nm in a fiber low loss spectrum.
Calculate the bandwidth in THz provided by each window. (Take the velocity of light
to be 2x108 m/s , why?)

Q.10. A step-index multimode glass fiber has a core diameter of 50 µm and cladding
refractive index of 1.45. If it is to have a limiting intermodal dispersion T of 10
ns/km, find its acceptance angle. Also calculate the maximum bit rate for
transmission over a distance of 20 km.

Q.11. A signal travels from point A to point B. (a) If the signal power is 1.0 mW at point
A and 0.125 mW at point B, what is the attenuation in dB? What is the signal power
at point B if the attenuation is 15 dB?