OPTICAL FIBRES IN COMMUNICATION

An optical or light wave communication system is a system that uses light waves as
the carrier for transmission. An optical communication system mainly involves three
parts. Transmitter, receiver and channel. In optical communication transmitters are light
sources, receivers are light detectors and the channels are optical fibers. In optical
communication the channel i.e, optical fibers play an important role because it carries the
data from transmitter to the receiver. Hence, here we shall discuss mainly about optical
fibers.

Introduction
Optical fibers are arguably one of the world’s most influential scientific developments from the
latter half of the 20th century. Why has the development of fibers been given so much attention
by the scientific community when we have alternatives? The main reason is bandwidth – fibers
can carry an extremely large amount of information. More indirectly, many of the systems that
we either rely on or enjoy in everyday life such as banks, television and newspapers as (to name
only a very limited selection) are themselves dependent on communication systems that are
dependent on optical fibers.
Fundamentals of Fibers

The fundamental principle that makes optical fibers possible is total internal reflection. This is
described using the ray model of light as shown in following figure.
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Total Internal Reflection

From Snell’s Law we find that refraction (as shown by the dashed line) can only occur when the angle
theta1 is large enough. This implies that as the angle is reduced, there must be a point when the light ray
is reflected, where theta1 = theta2.
The angle where this happens is known as the critical angle and is:

3. CONSTRUCTION OF FIBERS

In fibers, there are two significant sections – the core and the cladding. The core is part where the light
rays travel and the cladding is a similar material of slightly lower refractive index to cause total internal
reflection. Usually both sections are fabricated from silica (glass). The light within the fiber is then
continuously totally internally reflected along the waveguide.

Structure of Fiber
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When light enters the fiber we must also consider refraction at the interface of the air and the fiber core.
The difference in refractive index causes refraction of the ray as it enters the fiber, allowing rays to enter
the fiber at an angle greater than the angle allowed within the fiber as shown in the figure 3.

Acceptance Angle

This acceptance angle, theta, is a crucial parameter for fiber and system designers. More widely
recognized is the parameter NA (Numerical Aperture) that is given by the following equation:

CLASSIFICATION OF OPTICAL FIBERS:-

Optical fibers are classified into three types based on the material used, number of modes and refractive
index.
1. Based on the materials used:-
a. Glass fibers:
They have a glass core and glass cladding. The glass used in the fiber is ultra pure, ultra transparent
silicon dioxide (SiO2) or fused quartz. Impurities are purposely added to pure glass to achieve the
desired refractive index.
b. Plastic clad silica:
This fiber has a glass core and plastic cladding. This performance though not as good as all glass fibers,
is quite respectable.
c. Plastic fibers:
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They have a plastic core and plastic cladding. These fibers are attractive in applications where high
bandwidth and low loss are not a concern.

2. Based on the number of modes:-

a. Single Mode fiber:
When a fiber wave-guide can support only the HE11 mode, it is referred to as a single mode wave-
guide. In a step index structure this occurs w3hen the wave-guide is operating at v<2.4 where v is
dimensionless number which relates the propagating in the cladding. These single mode fibers have
small size and low dopant level (typically 0.3% to 0.4% index elevation over the lading index.)
In high silica fibers the wave-guide and the material dispersion are often of opposite signs. This fact can
be used conveniently to achieve a single mode fiber of extremely large bandwidth. Reduced dopant level
results in lower attenuation than in multimode fibres. A single mode wave guide with its large and fully
definable bandwidth characteristics is an obvious candidate for long distance, high capacity transmission
applications.
b. Multimode fiber:
It is a fiber in which more than one mode is propagating at the system operating wavelength. Multimode
fiber system does not have the information carrying capacity of single mode fibers. However they offer
several advantages for specific systems. The larger core diameters result in easier splicing of fibers.
Given the larger cores, higher numerical apertures, and typically shorter link distances, multimode
systems can use less expensive light sources such as LED s . Multimode fibers have numerical apertures
that typically range from 0.2 to 0.29 and have core size that range from 35 to100 micro-meters.

3. Based on refractive index:-

a. Step index fiber:
The step index (SI) fiber consists of a central core whose refractive index is n1, surrounded by a lading
whose refractive index is n2, lower than that of core. Because of an abrupt index change at the core
cladding interface such fibers are called step index fibers.
b. Graded index fibers:
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The refractive index of the core in graded index fiber is not constant, but decreases gradually from its
maximum value n1 to its minimum value n2 at the core-cladding interface. The ray velocity changes
along the path because of variations in the refractive index. The ray propagating along the fiber axis
takes the shortest path but travels most slowly, as the index is largest along this path in medium of lower
refractive index where they travel faster. It is therefore possible for all rays to arrive together at the fiber
output by a suitable choice of refractive index profile.

5. MODES AND PROPAGATION OF LIGHT IN FIBERS

Also crucial to understanding fibers is the principle of modes. A more in-depth analysis of the
propagation of light along an optical fiber requires the light to be treated as an electromagnetic wave
(rather that as a ray).

Modes
The solid line is the lowest order mode shown on figure 4. It is clear that according to the ray model the
lowest order mode will travel down a given length of fiber quicker than the others. The electromagnetic
field model predicts the opposite – that the highest order mode will travel quicker. However, the overall
effect is still the same – if a signal is sent down the fiber as several modes then as it travels along the
fibre the pulse will spread out, this can lead to the pulses merging and becoming indistinguishable.

Propagation of light in fibers

The propagation of light is as shown in figure 5. When light ray enters the core with an angle strikes
the surface of cladding whose refractive index is less than that of core. As the incidence angle on surface
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of the cladding is greater than or equal to critical angle total internal reflection takes place. Hence
the ray is reflected back into the core in the forward direction. This process continues until it
reaches other end of the cable.

The method of signal transmission has benefits in terms of security – for the signal to be ‘tapped’ the
fiber must be broken (since effectively no energy escapes from the fiber) and this can easily be detected
(when no signal reaches the other end of the fiber!). This is one of the many advantages of the medium.
But mainly two factors, attenuation and dispersion of light, have to be considered while transmitting the
light over large distances. We use repeaters and regenerators to reduce the attenuation and dispersion.

REPEATERS AND REGENERATORS:-

Optical repeaters are purely optical devices that are used simply to combat attenuation in the fiber;
typically spans of 80km upwards are now possible. The recent introduction of soliton transmission
methods has increased the allowed distance between repeaters and systems spanning 130km without a
repeater are now possible. Regenerators are devices consisting of both electronic and optical
components to provide ‘3R’ regeneration – Retiming, Reshaping, Regeneration. Retiming and reshaping
detect the digital signal that will be distorted and noisy (partly due to the optical repeaters), and recreate
it as a clean signal as shown in figure 6 This clean signal is then regenerated (optically amplified) to be
sent on. It should be noted that repeaters are purely optical devices whereas regenerators require optical-
to-electrical (O/E) conversion and electrical-to-optical (E/O) conversion. The ultimate aim of many fiber
system researchers is to create a purely optical network without electronics, which would maximize
efficiency and performance. Many aspects of such a system are in place, but some still require the O/E
and E/O conversion.
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A digital signal before (noisy and attenuated) and after regeneration

The most common optical amplifier currently in use is the EDFA (Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier).
These consist of a coil of fiber doped with the rare earth metal erbium. A laser diode pumps the erbium
atoms to a high-energy state; when the signal reaches the doped fiber the energy of the erbium atoms is
transferred to the signal, thus amplifying it.

Light Sources

Two types of light source are used with fibers, LEDs and Laser Diodes. LEDs can operate in the near
infrared (the main wavelengths used in fibers are 1300nm and 1550nm, along with 850nm for some
applications); they can emit light at 850nm and 1300nm. They also have the advantages of long lifetimes
and being cheap. Unfortunately they are large compared to the cross-section of a fiber and so a large
amount of light is lost in the coupling of an LED with a fiber. This also reduces the amount of modal
control designers have over incident light. Laser diodes can be made to emit light at either 1300nm or
1550 nm, and also over a small spectral width (unlike LEDs), which reduces chromatic dispersion. Their
emitting areas are extremely small and so the angle of incidence of light on a fiber can be accurately
controlled such that <5% of the possible modes within a multimode fiber will be initially used. They are
more efficient than LEDs in terms of coupling of light into the fiber, although they have shorter lifetimes
than and are more expensive than LEDs. One crucial advantage of lasers over LEDs in today’s world of
digital communications is their high switching speed and small rise times, leading to increased
bandwidth.

Detecting the Signal

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The most efficient detectors are reverse-bias photo detectors. They essentially cause a current to flow
when light is incident on them. The choice of semiconductor that is used to fabricate the detector is
dependent on the wavelength sensitivity and the responsivity that are required. Bandwidth
considerations are also important (determined by the rise time and fall time of a detector); in detectors
the fall time is often appreciably greater than the rise time and so this must be used to calculate the
bandwidth of a detector. There are many further complications in detectors, including noise equivalent
power that indicates how ‘clean’ a signal from a detector is.

ADVANTAGES OVER CONVENTIONAL CABLES

Wide Bandwidth: Optical fibers offer greater bandwidth due to the use of light as carrier. The
frequency range used for glass fiber communication extends from 2*e14Hz to 4*e14Hz. Hence
optical fibers are suitable for high speed, large capacity telecommunication lines.

Low Loss: In a coaxial cable attenuation increases with frequency. The higher the frequency of
information signals the greater the loss, whereas in an optical fiber the attenuation is independent
of frequency. They offer a loss of0.2 dBm/km, allowing repeater separation upto 50Km or more.

Freedom from electromagnetic interference: Optical fibers are not affected by interference
originating from power cables, railways and radio waves. They do not limit unwanted radiation
and no cross talk between fibers exists. These fibers make an ideal transmission medium when
EMI (Electro Magnetic Immunity) is increased.

Non conductivity: Optical fibers are non-conductive and are not effective by strong
electromagnetic interference such as lighting. These are usable in explosive environment.

Small diameters and less weight: Even multi fiber optical cables have a small diameter and are
light weight, and flexible optical fiber cables permit effective utilization of speech and can also be
applicable to long distance use are easier to handle and install than conventional cables.
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Security: Fiber optic is a highly source transmission medium. It does not radiate energy that can be
received by a nearby antenna, and it is extremely difficult to tap a fiber and virtually impossible to
make the tap undetected.

Safety: Fibre is a dielectric and does not carry electricity. It presents no sparks or fire hazards. It does
not cause explosions, which occur due to faulty copper cable.

Areas of Application

Telecommunications: Optical fibers are now the standard point to point cable link between
telephone substations.

Local Area Networks (LAN's): Multimode fiber is commonly used as the "backbone" to carry
signals between the hubs of LAN's from where copper coaxial cable takes the data to the desktop. Fiber
links to the desktop, however, are also common.

Cable TV: As mentioned before domestic cable TV networks use optical fiber because of its very low
power consumption.

CCTV: Closed circuit television security systems use optical fiber because of its inherent security, as
well as the other advantages mentioned above

12. Conclusions

We are currently in the middle of a rapid increase in the demand for data bandwidth across the Earth.
For most applications optical fibers are the primary solution to this problem. They have potentially a
very high bandwidth, with many of the bandwidth limitations now being at the transceivers rather than
being an intrinsic property of the fiber allowing easy upgrading of systems without relaying cable. This
is creating a surge in the deployment of fiber both in backbones of networks and in topologically
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horizontal cabling, which inturn is supporting and propelling the industry into further research. With the
adoption of new techniques such as DWDM, soliton transmission, and ultimately the purely optical
network, we have a medium that will satisfy our communication needs for the foreseeable future.