9th Class

28-08-23
Fiber Optic
Communication
 Optical Receiver operation
 An optical receiver consists of a Photodetector, an
amplifier and signal processing circuitry.
 1.convert the optical energy emerging from the end of a
fiber into an electrical signal,
 2.and then amplifying this signal to a large enough level
so that it can be processed by the electronics following
the receiver amplifier.
 3.In these processes, various Noise and Distortions will
be introduced, which can lead to errors in the
interpretation of the received signal.
 Importance of Noise
 The current generated by the Photodetector is generally a very
weak signal and is affected by the Random Noises associated
with the photo-detection process.
 When this signal output from the photodetector is amplified,
additional noises arising from the amplifier electronics will
further corrupt the signal.
 Noise considerations are therefore occupy prime importance in
the design of optical receivers, since the noise sources operating
in the receiver set the lowest limit for the signals that can be
processed.
 In designing a receiver, it is desirable to predict its
performance based on mathematical models of the various
receiver stages.
 These models must take into account the Noise and Distortions
added to the signal by the components in each stage, and must
give an idea to the designer, which components to chose, so that
the desired performance criteria of the receiver are met.
 The most meaningful criterion for measuring the Digital
communication system is the average error probability.
 The calculation of the error probability for a digital
optical communication receiver differs from that of
conventional systems.
 Different authors used different numerical methods to
derive approximate predictions for the receiver
performance.
 7.1 Fundamental Receiver Operation

 The design of optical receiver is much more

complicated than the optical transmitter because the
receiver must first detect the weak, distorted signals
and then make decisions on what type of data was sent
based on an amplified version of this distorted signal.
 Since most of the optical fiber systems use Two-Level
binary digital signal, we shall analyze the receiver
performance using this signal.
 7.1.1DIGITAL SIGNAL TRANSMISSION
:
 A Typical digital fiber transmission link is shown in Figure.
 The transmitted signal is a two-level binary data stream
consisting of either a ‘0’ or a ‘1’ in a bit period Tb.
 The simplest technique for sending binary data is amplitude-
shift keying, wherein a voltage level is switched between on or
off values.
 The resultant signal wave thus consists of a voltage pulse of
amplitude V when a binary 1 occurs and a zero-voltage-level
space when a binary 0 occurs.
Digital Transmission System (DTS)
 The function of optical transmitter is to convert Electrical
signal to an optical signal.

 An electric current i(t) can be used to modulate directly an

optical source to produce an optical output power P(t).
 In the optical signal emerging from the transmitter, a ‘1’ is
represented by a light pulse of duration Tb, whereas a ‘0’ is
the absence of any light.
 The optical signal that gets coupled from the light source to
the fiber becomes attenuated and distorted as it propagates
along the fiber waveguide.
 Upon reaching the receiver, either a PIN or an APD
converts the optical signal back to an electrical format . this
is amplified and filtered
 A decision circuit compares the amplified signal in each
time slot with a threshold level/ref.voltage.
 If the received signal level is greater than the threshold
level, a ‘1’ is said to have been received.
 the voltage is below the threshold level, a ‘0’ is assumed to
have been received.
 Error Sources
 Errors in the detection mechanism can arise from various noises and
disturbances, associated with signal detection system.
 Noise- unwanted components.
 Noise Sources: external/internal
 Internal noise : imp: spontaneous fluctuation of V or I
 The two most common examples are shot noise and thermal noise.
 Shot noise arises in electronic devices because of the discrete nature of
current flow in the device.
 Thermal noise arises from the random motion of electrons in a conductor.
 The random arrival rate of signal photons produces a quantum (or shot)
noise at the photodetector. This noise depends on the signal level
 7.1.3 Receiver Configuration

The binary digital pulse train incident on the photodetector can be written in the
following form:

P (t )  b h
n  
n p (t  nTb ) [7-3]

where Tb is bit period, bn is an amplitude parameter of the nth message digit

and h p (t )is the received pulse shape which is positive for all t.
 This noise is of particular importance for PIN receivers that have
large optical input levels and for APD receivers.
 When using an APD, an additional shot noise arises from the
statistical nature of the multiplication process. This noise level
increases with increasing avalanche gain M.
 Additional photodetector noise : dark I &leakage I
 Thermal noises arising from the detector load resistor and from
the amplifier electronics tend to dominate in applications with
low SNR when a PIN photodiode is used.
 When an APD is used in low-optical-signal-level applications, the optimum avalanche
gain is determined by a design tradeoff between the thermal noise and the gain-
dependent quantum noise.
 The primary photocurrent generated by the photodiode is a time-varying Poisson
process.
 If the detector is illuminated by an optical signal P(t), then the average number of electron-
hole pairs generated in a time is


 
N 
h 0
P (t ) dt 
h
E

e N
Pr ( n)  N n

n!
 Where

N is the average number of electron-hole pairs in photodetector,

 is the detector quantum efficiency and E is energy received in a time
interval  and h is photon energy, where Pr (n) is the probability
that n electrons are emitted in an interval  .

 The actual number of electron-hole pairs n that are generated fluctuates from the average

according to the Poisson distribution where Pr(n) is the probability that n electrons are
emitted in an interval .
 The fact that it is not possible to predict exactly how-many electron-
hole pairs are generated by a known optical power incident on the
detector is the origin for this type of shot noise called Quantum Noise.

 The random nature of the Avalanche Multiplication process gives raise

to another type of shot noise.
 For a detector with a mean avalanche gain M and an ionization rate
ratio k, the excess noise factor F(M) for electron injection is
 1 
F ( M )  kM   2  (1  k )  M
x

 M 
 where the factor x ranges between 0 and 1.0 depending on the
photodiode material.
Intersymbol Interference(ISI)
 A further error source is attributed to intersymbol interference
(ISI), which
results from pulse spreading in the optical fiber.
 When a pulse is transmitted in a given time slot, most of the
pulse energy will arrive in the corresponding time slot at the
receiver, as shown in the Fig. However, because of the pulse
spreading induced in the fiber, some transmitted energy will
progressively spread into neighboring time slots as the pulse
propagates along the fiber.
 Interference
 The presence of this energy in the adjacent time slots
results in an interfering signal and ,hence the term
Intersymbol Interference.
 The fraction of energy remaining in the appropriate time
slot is designated by γ, so that 1-γ is the fraction of
energy that has spread into adjacent time slots.
 Pulse spreading in an optical signal that leads to ISI.
InterSymbol Interference (ISI)

Pulse spreading in an optical signal, after traversing along optical fiber,

leads to ISI. Some fraction of energy remaining in appropriate time slot
is designated by  , so the rest is the fraction of energy that has spread
Into adjacent time slots.
 7.2 Digital Receiver Performance

7.2.1 Probability of Error:

 There are several standard ways of measuring the rate of error occurrences in a
digital data stream.
 One common approach is to divide the number Ne of errors occurring over a
certain time interval t by the number Nt of pulses [ones and zeros] transmitted
during this interval. this is called either the error rate or the bit error rate BER.
 Bit Error Rate (BER)-Several standard ways to mesure

BER  Probabilit y of Error 

# of error over a certain ti me interval t

total # of pulses transmitt ed during t [7-5]

Ne Ne
 B  1 / Tb
Nt Bt
 where B=1/Tb(bit rate). Ne,Nt : Number of errors, pulses.
 The error rate is expressed by a number such as 10 -9 indicating that on the
average, one error occurs for every Billion pulses sent. Typical Error rates for
OFC systems will be in the range 10-9 to 10-12
 This Error rate depends on the signal-to-noise ratio at the receiver
 The system error rate requirements and the receiver noise levels thus set the
lower limit on the optical power level that is required at the Photodetector.

 Probability of Error= probability that the output voltage is less than the
threshold when a 1 is sent + probability that the output voltage is more than
the threshold when a 0 has been sent.
 To compute the BER at the receiver, we have to know the probability distribution of the signal
at the equalizer output.
 because,it is here only the decission is made on whether a o or a 1 is sent.
 The shapes of two signal pdf’s are shown in Fig. 7.7.

v
P1 (v)   p( y | 1)dy

probablity that the equalizer output vol tage is less than v, if 1 transmitt ed


P0 (v)   p ( y | 0)dy probablity that the equalizer output vol tage exceeds v, if 0 transmitt ed
v

 Probability distributions for received logical 0 and 1 signal pulses.

 the different widths of the two distributions are caused by various signal
 distortion effects.
 If we assume that the probabilities of 0 and 1 pulses are equally likely, then
using eq [7-7] and [7-8] , BER becomes:


1 1 Q 
BER  Pe (Q )    )dx  
2
exp( x 1 erf ( )
 Q/ 2
2 2 
1 exp(-Q 2 /2)

2 Q [7-9]

 The approximation is obtained from the assymptotic expansion of

erf(x).Here,the parameter is Q is defined as [7-9]
v th  boff bon  v th
Q  
 off  on
 And x
2
erf ( x )   exp( y [7-10]
2
)dy
 0

 Is the standard error function.