Numerical Problems on optical

fibers and Theory

1st Chapter
 Wavelength and Frequency Calculations

A) A wave consists of alternation crests and troughs. The wavelength (λ) is defined as the distance between
any two consecutive identical points on the waveform. The amplitude is the height of the wave.

(B) A wave with a short wavelength (top) has a high frequency because more waves pass a given point in a
certain amount of time. A wave with a longer wavelength (bottom) has a lower frequency.
relationship between the wavelength and frequency of a wave

C=λf

The variable c is the speed of light. For the relationship to hold

mathematically, if the speed of light is used in m/s, the wavelength
must be in meters and the frequency in Hertz.
 Wavelength (λ)=620nm
Speed of light (c)=3.00×10 8 m/s
Conversion factor 1m=10 9 nm

Convert the wavelength to m , then apply the equation c=λf

and solve for frequency. Dividing both sides of the equation by λ yields:

f = c /λ

620 nm × (1m / 109 nm) = 6.20 × 10 −7 m

f= c / λ = 3.0 × 108m/s / 6.20 × 10−7 = 4.8 × 1014 Hz

Refractive index is also equal to the velocity of light c of a given wavelength in

empty space divided by its velocity v in a substance, or n = c / v.

• n is the refractive index

• c is the velocity of light in a vacuum ( 3 × 108 m/s)
• v is the velocity of light in a substance

The speed of light in an unknown medium is measured to be 2.76 x 10 8 m/s.  (a)  What

is the index of refraction of the medium? 

The index is found to be

n = c/v 
= (3.00 x 108 m/s)/(2.76 x 108 m/s)

= 1.09.
Snell's Law describes how light bends when traveling from one medium to the

next.  Mathematically, it is stated as where ni represents the index of refraction in

medium i, and θi represents the angle the light makes with the normal in medium i.

n1 sin θ1= n2 sin θ2.

Light travels from air into an optical fiber with an index of refraction of 1.44. 

(a)  In which direction does the light bend? 

(b)  If the angle of incidence on the end of the fiber is 22o, what is the angle of
refraction inside the fiber? 

(c)  Sketch the path of light as it changes media.

Solution:
(a)
Since the light is traveling from a rarer region (lower n) to a denser region (higher n), it
will bend toward the normal.
 

(b)
We will identify air as medium 1 and the fiber as medium 2. 
Thus, n1 = 1.00, n2 = 1.44, and θ1 = 22o.  Snell's Law then becomes
(1.00) sin 22o = 1.44 sin θ2.
sin θ 2 = (1.00/1.44) sin 22o = 0.260
θ 2 = sin-1 (0.260) = 15o.

(c)
The path of the light is shown in the figure below.
Light traveling through an optical fiber (n=1.44) reaches the end of the fiber

and exits into air.  (a)  If the angle of incidence on the end of the fiber is 30 o,

what is the angle of refraction outside the fiber?  (b)  How would your answer

be different if the angle of incidence were 50o?

Solution:

(a)

Since the light is now traveling from the fiber into air, we will call the fiber material 1
and air material 2.  Thus, n1 = 1.44, n2 = 1.00, and θ1 = 30o. 

Snell's Law then becomes(1.44) sin 30o = 1.00 sin θ2.

sin θ2 = (1.44/1.00) sin 30o = 1.44 (0.500) = 0.720

θ2 = sin-1 (0.720) = 46o.

Notice that this time, the angle of refraction is larger than the angle of incidence. 

The light is bending away from the normal as it enters a rarer material.

(b)

Replacing the angle of incidence with 50o gives

sin θ2 = (1.44/1.00) sin 50o = 1.44 (0.766) = 1.103

This equality cannot be met, so light cannot exit the fiber under these
conditions.
Example 1

Find the critical angle for the crown glass-air boundary The solution to the problem
requires the use of the above equation for the critical angle.

Θ c = sin-1 ( n 2 / n 1)

n 1 = refractive index of glass=1.52

n 2 = refractive index of air=1.000

Θ c = sin-1 (1.000 / 1.52) = 41.1 degrees

Example 2

Find the critical angle for the diamond-air boundary. The solution to the problem
requires the use of the above equation for the critical angle.
n1 = refractive index of diamond = 2.42

n2 = refractive index of air = 1.000

Θ crit = sin-1 (n 2 / n 1)

Θ crit = sin-1 (1.000 / 2.42) = 24.4 degrees

A typical relative refractive index difference for an optical fiber designed for long
distance transmission is 1%. With n1 = 1.46.
i. Estimate the NA.
ii. Further, calculate the critical angle at the core–cladding interface within the fiber. It
may be assumed that the concepts of geometric optics hold for the fiber.
An optical fiber has a NA of 0.20 and a core refractive index of 1.50.

Determine

The acceptance angle for the fiber in water which has a refractive index of 1.33.
Critical angle at the core cladding interface.
Given NA =0.20, NA = n0 sin θ a ; n0 = 1.33 of water ;

θ a = sin -1
8.648 ° NA =

n1 = 1.50 ; (NA) 2 = ( n 1 ) 2 - ( n 2 ) 2 = ( 1.5 ) 2 - ( n 2 ) 2 n 2 = 1.487

Critical Angle = Φ c = sin -1 ( 1.487/1.50)

= sin -1 ( 0.9910712498)
= 83.39
STEP INDEX FIBER : The refractive index of the core is uniform throughout and
undergoes on abrupt change at the core cladding boundary
GRADED INDEX FIBER: The refractive index of the core is made to vary gradually such
that it is maximum at the center of the core
A step-index fiber has a core index of refraction of n1 = 1.425.  The cut-off angle for light
entering the fiber from air is found to be 8.50o. 
(a)  What is the numerical aperture of the fiber? 
(b)  What is the index of refraction of the cladding of this fiber? 
(c)  If the fiber were submersed in water, what would be the new numerical aperture and
cut-off angle?
 Solution:

(a)
From the values of indices of refraction, we see that n0 = nair = 1.0003. 

The numerical aperture is therefore

NA = n0 sin θa = (1.0003) sin (8.50o) = 0.148.

(b)

The index of refraction of the cladding can be found from the numerical aperture:

n12 - n22 = NA2.

n22 = n12 - NA2 = (1.425)2 - (0.1479)2 = 2.0088

n2 = 1.417.
(c)
Let the n0 = nwater = 1.33.  

Since the numerical aperture is a property of the fiber and only depends upon n1 and n2,

it will not change when the medium outside the fiber changes. 
The cut-off angle, however, will have to change if the numerical aperture is to be unaffected by a
change in n0:

NA = 0.148.
sin θa = NA/n0

θa= sin-1(NA/n0)

= sin-1(0.1479/1.33) =
= sin-1(0.1112) = 6.38o.
The Step index fiber has a core RI of 1.5, cladding RI of 1.48. Core diameter of 100 μm.
Calculate assuming that the fiber is kept in air.
Estimate
i. NA of the fiber.
ii. Acceptance, Refraction angle and critical angles

n1=1.5 ; n2=1.48; na=1= fiber is placed in air;

a. NA = ( n12 – n22 ) ½ =0.244

b. Acceptance angle – 14.13

c. Angle of refraction = 9.36

d. Critical angle = 80.63

Definition: Graded Index fiber is another type of optical fiber in which the
Graded Index Fiber
refractive index of the core is non-uniform.

This non-uniformity is present because the refractive index is higher at the axis of
the core and continuously reduces with the radial movement away from the axis.

However, the refractive index of the cladding is constant in the case of graded
index fiber. Hence the nature of the refractive index of the core is somewhat
parabolic.

Unlike graded index optical fiber, the step index fiber has a constant refractive
index at the core as well as cladding.
In this type of fiber, the light ray experiences refraction thus gets
bent towards the core. Thereby allowing propagation of ray in a
curved path.

The refractive index of graded index fiber in the mathematical term is

expressed as:

 a is the radius of the core

r is the radial distance from the core axis
α shows characteristic of the refractive index profile

n1 and n2 are the refractive indices of core and cladding

respectively.
α shows characteristic of the refractive index profile

n1 and n2 are the refractive indices of core and cladding respectively.

Let us have a look at the curve shown below that represents the
variation in the profile of the refractive index with various values of
alpha:
Graded-Index Multimode fiber
Advantages of Graded-Index Fiber

• It can transmit a large amount of information.

• The distortion is comparatively small than step index fiber.

Disadvantages of Graded-Index fiber

• These fibers possess low light coupling efficiency.

• It is somewhat expensive than step index fiber.
• Thus from the above discussion, we can say that in the case of graded index fiber
the transmitted information signal can be propagated efficiently and the chances of
dispersion are also less in this case.
 Skew rays

Another category of ray exists which is transmitted without passing through the fiber
axis. These rays, which greatly outnumber the meridional rays,
follow a helical path through the fiber, as illustrated in Figure 2.6, and are called skew
rays.
It is not easy to visualize the skew ray paths in two dimensions, but it may be
observed from Figure 2.6(b) that the helical path traced through the fiber gives a change
in
direction of 2  at each reflection, where  is the angle between the projection of the
ray in two dimensions and the radius of the fiber core at the point of reflection.

Hence, unlike meridional rays, the point of emergence of skew rays from the fiber in air
will depend upon the number of reflections they undergo rather than the input conditions
to the fiber.

When the light input to the fiber is non uniform, skew rays will therefore tend to have a
smoothing effect on the distribution of the light as it is transmitted, giving a more uniform
output. The amount of smoothing is dependent on the number of reflections encountered
by the skew rays.
the acceptance angle for skew rays is:
 Electromagnetic mode theory for optical propagation

Electromagnetic waves
In common with the planar guide

TE (where E z = 0) and
TM (where H z = 0) modes are obtained within the dielectric cylinder.

The cylindrical waveguide, however, is bounded in two dimensions rather than

one.

Thus two integers, l and m, are necessary in order to specify the modes, in
contrast to the single integer (m) required for the planar guide.

For the cylindrical waveguide we therefore refer to TE lm and TM lm modes.

However, hybrid modes where Ez and Hz are nonzero also occur within the
cylindrical waveguide.
l and m
Related to Electric
Field parameters
 single mode fiber

Typically single mode fiber core are around eight to

ten microns in diameter, much smaller than a
hair. Single mode fiber does not suffer from multi-
modal dispersion and this means that it has a much
wider bandwidth.

The advantage of the propagation of a single mode within an

optical fiber is that the signal dispersion caused by the delay
differences between different modes in a multimode fiber may
be avoided.

the transmission of a single mode the fiber must be designed to allow propagation of
only one mode, while all other modes are attenuated by leakage or absorption
For single-mode operation, only the fundamental LP 01 mode can exist. Hence
the limit of single-mode operation depends on the lower limit of guided
propagation for the LP11 mode. The cutoff normalized frequency for the LP 11
mode in step index fibers occurs at Vc = 2.405

Thus single-mode propagation of the LP01 mode in step index fibers is possible over the
range:

as there is no cutoff for the fundamental mode. It must be noted that there are in fact
two modes with orthogonal polarization over this range, and the term single-mode
applies to propagation of light of a particular polarization.

Also, it is apparent that the normalized frequency for the fiber may be adjusted to
within the range given in Eq. (2.96) by reduction
Graded index fibers may also be designed for single-mode operation and some
specialist fiber designs do adopt such non step index profiles However,

it may be shown that the cut off value of normalized frequency Vc to support a
single mode in a graded index fiber is given by:
A wave front is a surface or line in the path of wave motion on which the

disturbances at every point have the same phase. Depending upon the source

of light, wave fronts can be of three types:

spherical wave front,

cylindrical wave front and

plane wave front.
 Diffraction of Light

Diffraction refers to various phenomena that occur when a wave

encounters an obstacle or a slit. It is defined as the bending of waves
around the corners of an obstacle or through an aperture into the
region of geometrical shadow of the obstacle/aperture.
Polarization of light mean restricting the vibration of light in one phase only by cutting it's
vibration in other phase

Vibrations lie on one single plane only is called polarization of light.

Mode coupling describes how energy is
transferred between modes