Plastic Fibers

• Multimode fibers (core diameter as large as 1 mm).

• Large NA results in high coupling efficiency.
• Use of plastics reduces cost but loss exceeds 50 dB/km.
• Useful for data transmission over short distances (<1 km).
• 10-Gb/s signal transmitted over 0.5 km (1996 demo).
• Ideal solution for transferring data between computers.
• Commonly used polymers:
× polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), polystyrene
× polycarbonate, poly(perfluoro-butenylvinyl) ether

9
Silica fiber fabrication
Importance of Fiber Purity
• Incredible sensitivity of optical fiber communications to
impurities and flaws.
• Light transmission through 1 km of fiber drops to 1% of the
input intensity if there are only:
• –2 Co atoms per billion
• –20 Fe atoms per billion
• –50 Cu atoms per billion

10
TYPICAL MATERIAL COMBINATIONS FOR OPTICAL FIBERS

11
TYPICAL MATERIAL COMBINATIONS FOR OPTICAL FIBERS

12
Silica fiber fabrication
Two-Stage Fabrication
• Preform: Length 1 m, diameter 2 cm; correct index profile.
• Preform is drawn into fiber using a draw tower.
• Preform Fabrication Techniques
• Modified chemical vapor deposition (MCVD).
• Outside vapor deposition (OVD).
• Vapour Axial deposition (VAD).

13
14
15
Several index profiles used in the design of single-mode fibers.
Upper and lower rows correspond to standard and dispersion-
shifted fibers, respectively.

16
Fiber Draw Tower

17
18
19
20
Wave Propagation
Maxwell’s Equations
Non conducting medium, no free charges and currents

(ME1)
: Electric field;
(ME2) : Magnetic field;

(ME3) Electric flux density;

: Magnetic flux density
(ME4)

;
for a non-magnetic medium
Evaluation of needs microscopic QM approach
Relation between and is nonlinear, in general 21
Wave Propagation
Taking Curl of (ME1) and using (ME2), along with the
constitutive relations and

is related to as:

Introducing the Fourier Transform

where is the dielectric constant

22
Wave Propagation
Using the identity: ( .

Simplifications

can be taken to be real and replaced by because of

low optical losses in silica fibers.

is independent of the spatial coordinate in both

the core and the cladding of a step-index fiber

Using the relation , we get . ,

Wave Equation

23
Wave Propagation
In general, is complex. Its real and imaginary parts
are related to refractive index and absorption coefficient

; / ;

Assuming weak absorption, and with

and

24
Cylindrical waveguide equations
• Useful to work in cylindrical coordinates .

Functional form of the EM waves:

( )
( )

is the component of the propagation vector.

25
 Cylindrical waveguide equations

Substituting the expressions for and in Maxwell’s curl eqs.

(C1)

(C2)

(C3)

and

(C4)

(C5)

(C6)
26
 Cylindrical waveguide equations
By eliminating variable in the previous set of equations
can be obtained in terms of

(C7)

(C8)
Derive
(C9)

(C10)

where

27
 Cylindrical waveguide equations
Substituting C9 and C10 in C6; C7 and C8 in C3, we get the wave equation
in cylindrical coordinates

(WE)
Derive
(WH)

• The above Eqns. Contain only or only .

• This appears to imply that the longitudinal components of E and H are
uncoupled and can be chosen arbitrarily
• However, in general, coupling of a is required by the boundary
conditions
• If boundary conditions do not lead to coupling between the field
components, TE or TM modes can be obtained.
• Hybrid modes exist if both a are nonzero. These are designated
as HE or EH modes, depending on whether o , respectively,
makes a larger contribution to the transverse field. 28
 Wave Equations for Step Index Fiber
Separation of variables method is used for solving the wave equations.
Assuming solutions of the form:

( )
The and dependent factors are assumed as
Using the separation of variables technique, obtain the following equations:

Since , the solution is of the form

where is an integer
The dependent part gives

(WEC)

• This is the well known equation for Bessel functions.

• Identical equations can be derived for 29
 Wave Equations for Step Index Fiber
• For the configuration of the step-index fiber we consider a
homogeneous core of refractive index and radius
• An infinite cladding of index
• Guided modes in the core have exponentially decaying fields in the
cladding
• Fibers are designed with claddings that are sufficiently thick so that
the guided-mode field does not reach the outer boundary of the
cladding

30