OPTICAL FIBRE

Brief Flow of Presentation

1. What is Optical Fiber?
2. Introduction
3. Evolution of optical fiber
4. Structure of optical fiber
5. Workings principle of optical fiber
6. Classification of optical fiber
7. Optical fiber communication system
8. Advantages / Disadvantages of Optical fiber
9. Applications of Optical fiber
10. Conclusion
 What is optical Fiber?
• An optical fiber is a hair thin cylindrical fiber of glass or any transparent
dielectric medium.
• The fiber which are used for optical communication are wave guides
made of transparent dielectrics.
• Its function is to guide visible and infrared light over long distances. It
transmits signals in the form of light.
• A light-emitting diode (LED) or laser diode (LD) can be used for the
source.
• Often, two or more fibers are enclosed in the same cable for
increased bandwidth and redundancy in case one of the fibers breaks.
Optical Fiber Construction
Optic al Fiber Architecture

Transmitter
Input Coder or Light Source-to-Fiber
Signal Converter Source Interface

Fiber-optic Cable

Fiber-to-light Light Amplifier/Shaper Output

Interface Detector Decoder
Receiver
 Structure of optical fiber
Core
The core of a fiber cable is a cylinder of
plastic/glass along the fiber cable’s length and
offers protection by cladding. The diameter of
the core depends on the application used. Due
to total internal reflection, the light travelling
within the core reflects from the core-cladding
interface. The core cross section needs to be a
circular for most of the applications.

Cladding
Cladding is an outer optical material that protects the core. The main
function of the cladding is to reflect the light back into the core. When light
enters through the core (dense material) into the cladding(less dense
material), it changes its angle, and then reflects back to the core due to total
internal reflection phenomenon.
Buffer
The main function of the buffer is to protect the fiber from damage
and thousands of optical fibers arranged in hundreds of optical
cables. These bundles are protected by the cable’s outer covering
that is called jacket.

Jacket
Fiber optic cable’s jackets are available in different colors that can
easily make us recognize the exact color of the cable we are dealing
with. The color yellow clearly signifies a single mode cable, and
orange color indicates multimode.
 FIber types
Plastic core and cladding
Glass core with plastic cladding PCS (Plastic-Clad Silicon)
Glass core and glass cladding SCS:Silica-clad silica
Under research: non silicate:Zinc-chloride
1000 time as efficient asglass
 Working Principle
Total Internal Reflection
When a ray of light travels from a denser to a rarer medium such that the angle
of incidence is greater than the critical angle, the ray reflects back into the
same medium thisphenomena iscalled total internal reflection.

In the optical fiber the rays undergo repeated total number of reflections
until it emerges out of the other end of the fiber, even if the fiber isbent.
Daniel Colladon first described
this “light fountain” or “light pipe”
in an 1842 article titled On the
reflections of a ray of light inside a
parabolic liquid stream. This
particular illustration comes from a
later article by Colladon, in 1884.
 Evolution of optical fiber
1880 Alexander Graham Bell
- Photo phone, transmit sound waves over beam of light
1930: TV image through uncoated fiber cables
1951: Flexible fiberscope: Medical applications (endosc ope).

camera

LIGHT
1960: Laserinvented
1967: New Communications medium: cladded fiber
1960s: Extremely lossy fiber:
More than 1000 dB /km

1970: Corning Glass Work NY, Fiber with loss of less than 2 dB/km
70s &80s : High quality sources and detectors
Late 80s : Loss as low as 0.16dB/km
1990: Deployment of SONETsystems
Optical Fiber: Advantages

Capacity: much wider bandwidth (10 GHz) than copper

Long life of fibres compared to copper.
Unaffected by interference of
Lightening
Magnetic fields
Florescent light
Higher environment immunity
Weather, temperature, etc.
Lower loss
No electrical hazard
As it does not radiate energy any antenna or detector cannot
detects it hence provides signal security.
Disadvantages:

Highly skilled staff would be required for maintenance

Only point to point working is possible on optical fiber

Precise and costly instruments would be required

Jointing of fiber and splicing is also time consuming.

 Types of Fiber on the basis of modes of propagation
In digital multimode fiber systems, a light pulse separates into multiple spatial paths or
modes. Each component reaches the receiver at a slightly different time, broadening the
received pulse. Single-mode fiber solves the differential mode delay problem, allowing
data rates to be increased until chromatic dispersion.
Single mode fiber has a lower power loss
characteristic than multimode fiber, which
means light can travel longer distances
through it than it can through multimode fiber.
Within a data center, it's typical to use
multimode which can get you 300-400 meters.
If you have very long runs or are connecting
over longer distance, single mode can get you
10km, 40km, 80km, and even farther.

The multi-mode fiber has has much larger core

diameter than single mode fiber.
The core diameter of multimode fiber is
typically 50–100 micrometers, while that of
single mode fiber is between 8 and 10.5
micrometers.
 Modes and Materials
• Since optical fiber is a waveguide, light can propagate in a number of
modes
• If a fiber is of large diameter, light entering at different angles will
excite different modes while narrow fiber may only excite one mode
• Multimode propagation will cause dispersion, which results in the
spreading of pulses and limits the usable bandwidth
• Single-mode fiber has much less dispersion but is more expensive to
produce. Its small size, together with the fact that its numerical
aperture is smaller than that of multimode fiber, makes it more
difficult to couple to light sources
O p t i c a l fiber is classified into two categories based on:
1) The number of modes-
Single-Mode Fiber (SMF)
Multi-Mode Fiber (MMF)

2) The reflective index-

Step Index Optical Fiber
Graded Index Optical Fiber
 ON BASIS OF
NUMBER OF MODES
Single
Mode
Fiber

• In single mode fiber only one mode can propagate through the
fiber
• It has small core diameter (5 μm) and high cladding diameter
(70 μm)
• Difference between the refractive index of core and cladding is very
small
• There is neither dispersion nor degradation therefore it is suitable
for long distancecommunication.
 MULTI- MODE FIBER
• It allows a large number of modes
for light ray travelling throughit
• The core diameter is 40 μm and
that of cladding is 70 μm
• The relative refractive index
difference is also large than
single mode fiber
• There is signal degradation due
to multimode dispersion
• It is not suitable for long distance
communication due to large
dispersion and attenuation of signal
Types of Fiber on the basis on Ref. Index
• In step-index fibers the index of refraction changes radically between the core
and the cladding.
• Graded-index fiber is a compromise multimode fiber, but the index of
refraction gradually decreases away from the center of the core
• Graded-index fiber has less dispersion than a multimode step-index fiber
STEP INDEX FIBER
• The refractive index of core and cladding are constant
• The light ray propagate through it in the form of zig-zag
rays which cross the fiber axis during every reflection at the
core cladding boundary
GRADED INDEX FIBER
• Core has a non uniform refractive
index that gradually decrease from
the center towards the core -
cladding interface
• The cladding has a uniform refractive
index
• The light rays propagate through
it in the form of parabolic rays &
never cross the fiber axis
OPTICAL FIBER COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
 ATTENUATION
• Attenuation is the loss of the optical power
• Attenuation in optical fiber take place due to elements
like coupler, splices, connector and fiber itself
 Numerical Aperture and Angle ofAcceptance
• The numerical aperture of the fiber is
closely related to the critical angle and
is often used in the specification for
optical fiber and the components that
work with it

• The numerical aperture is given by the

formula:

N.A. = sin io = core

2
−  clad
2

• The angle of acceptance is twice that

given by the numerical aperture
 Numerical Aperture and Angle ofAcceptance
Consider a cylindrical fibre wire which consists of an inner core of refractive index µcore and
an outer cladding of refractive index µclad.

Let µo. be the refractive index of the medium from which the light ray enters the fibre. This
end is known as launching end. Let a ray of light enters the fibre at an incidence angle of i.
to the axis of fibre as shown in figure. This ray refracted at an angle r and strikes the core-
cladding interface at an angle θ. Let θ is greater than critical angle θc. As long as the angle θ
is greater than critical angle θc, the light will stay within the optical fibre.

Normal

Reflected ray
Q Cladding µ clad
Launching Total Internally
θ
end r reflected ray Axis of
i P R Fibre
µ core
µo

Incident ray
Now we shall calculate the angle of incidence i for which θ is greater than and equal to θc So
that the light remains within the core.
Applying the snell’s law of refraction at the So the eq 4 can be written as
point of entry P.
sin i =
core cos ----------- eq 5
o sin i = core sin r ----------- eq 1 m ax
 o
c

From triangle PQR it is seen that Applying the snell’s law of refraction
r +  = 90o , r = 90o −  at the core cladding interface
clad
core sin c = clad sin90 o
sin c =
Or core
sin r =sin(90o− ) =cos ----------- eq 2 clad
2
cosc = 1− 2 ----------- eq 6
Substituting the value of sin r from equation core
2 to eq 1 So the eq 5 can be written as
o sin i = core cos ----------- eq 3 
sin i max = core
 2
1− 2 =
clad
core
2
− clad
2

o core o2

sin i = core cos ----------- eq 4
sin im ax = core −  clad = NA
o
2 2

If Incidence angle i is increased beyond a

limit , θ will drop below the critical value θc imax = sin−1 core
2
− clad
2

and the ray will escape from the side walls of

the fibre. The largest value of i (imax) occures Here imax is the angle of acceptance
when θ = θc.
So the angle of acceptance is defined as the maximum angle that a light ray can have relative
to the axis of the fibre and propagate down the fibre.

Numerical Aperture:- It is also known as figure of merit for optical fibre. It is defined as sine
of acceptance angle. NA= io = imax

Propagation Condition

If i is the angle of incidence of an incident ray, then the ray will be able to propagate only if
i < io or sin i < sin io
or sin i core
2
−  clad
2

NA in terms of Fractional Refractive indexΔ

The fractional refractive index change Δ is defined as the ratio of refractive index difference
between core and cladding to the refractive index of core. It is expressed as
=
core − clad
core
(core − clad ) (core + clad )
NA = core
2
−  clad
2
= (core − clad )(core + clad ) = 2 core
core 2
( + clad ) (core + clad )
  core
Or if
NA =  core 2 core
2 2
than

NA = 2 core
2
=  core 2

V- Number
This is an important parameter of optical fibre given by the relation

2a
V=  core
2
−  clad
2 Where a is the radius of the core
 and λ is free space wave length.
The maximum number of modes (Nm) supported by a single mode step index fibre is
determined by.
1 2
Nm = V
2
If V< 2.405, the fibre will support only one mode and known as single mode optical fibre
If V>2.405, the fibre will support many modes simultaneously. This is known as multi-
mode fibre
The wavelength corresponding to the value V=2.0405 known as cutoff wavelength this
is expressed as

c = V
2.405
 Problems and Solutions
Q.1. Calculate the refractive indices of the core and cladding material of a fibre from the
following data NA=0.22 and Δ=0.012
Sol:- Given NA=0.22 and Δ=0.012

We know the relation

NA = 2 core
2
=  core 2
NA 0.22
core = = = 1.42
2 2 0.012

=
core − clad 1.42 − clad
so 0.012 =
core 1.42

clad = 1.40
 Applications:
• Optical fibre is extensively used in internet cables because it
transmits a large amount of data at very high speed. It is less
bulky, lighter and carry more data than the traditional cable
• It is used in Telephones.
• It is extensively used in surgery & dentistry.
• It is used in computer networking computers are connected using
optical fibre cable capable of high data transmission speed.
• Widely used in cable televisions optical fibre
cables are ideal for signal transmission in high-
definition television.
• Used in lighting & decoration
• It is used in Defence Sector
• Mechanical inspection
• Used by engineers onsite inspection
• It is used in Automotive Industry
• For lighting and safety features of present day automobile.
Thank You

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