By K.

Eugine Raj Assistant Professor/ECE SCAD Engg College

SOURCES AND DETECTORS

OPTICAL SOURCES Principle light sources are, (i) Hetero junction structured semiconductor LASER diode[injection laser diodes(ILDs)] (ii) Light Emitting Diodes -Hetero junction consists of two adjoining semiconductor materials with different band gap energies.

These devices are suitable for the fiber transmission system for the following reason. They have adequate output power for a wide range of application Their optical power output can be directly modulated by varying the input current to the device. They have high efficiency. The dimensional characteristics are compatible with those are compatible with those of the optical fiber.

Difference between LED & LASEER

LED LASER Optical output power Coherent is incoherent Has a broad spectral Highly monochromatic width Has large beam Output beam is very divergence. directional.

Direct & Indirect Band Gap Material

Semiconductor are classified as either direct band gap

or indirect band gap as a function of the momentum.

Light Emitting Diode(LEDs)

LED is the best choice for the optical

communication system requiring bit rate less than 100 to 200Mbps together with multimode fiber coupled optical power in tens of watts. Requires less complex drive circuitry Fabricated less expensively.

a)LED Structure
To be useful in fiber transmission application an LED must have

High radiance output ii) A fast emission response time iii) A high quantum efficiency -Radiation shows the brightness of the optical radiation. -Emission response time is the time delay between the application of current pulse and the onset of optical. -Quantum efficiency is related to the fraction of injected electron hole pair that recombine radiatively.
i)

a)LED Structure
To achieve a high radiance and a high

quantum efficiency the LED structure must provide a means of configuring the charged carrier and the stimulated optical emission in the active region of the PN junction. This can be attained by i) Carrier Confinement ii) Optical Confinement

Carrier Confinement To achieve a high level of radiation recombination which yields a high quantum efficiency. Optical Confinement To achieve a high radiance for preventing absorption of the radiation by the material surrounding the PN-Junction. To achieve these confinement LED configuration such as double hetero structure (or) hetero junction configuration is used.

 Band gap difference of adjacent layer confines the charge carrier Difference in refractive indices of adjacent layer confines the optical field to the central active layer. (A) Two basic LED structure are,

Surface Emitters(front emitters) ii) Edge Emitters

i)

Surface Emitters

Surface Emitters
In surface emitters the plane of active light

emitting region is oriented perpendicular to the axis of the fiber as shown in figure. A well is etched through the substrate into which a fiber is cemented. Circular active area .50m in diameter and 2.5m thick Emission pattern Isotropic with a 1200 half power beam width.

Surface Emitters
In this pattern the source is equally bright

when viewed from any direction but power dimnished as cos, where is the angle between viewing direction and the normal to the surface.

Edge Emitter
It consists of active junction region and two guiding layers.

Edge Emitter
The guiding layer both have a refractive index

which is lower than that of active region but higher than the surrounding material. Contact strip50-70m wide Length of active region 100-150m Emission pattern More directional than surface emitters In plane parallel to junction, beam is lambertian, half power width of 11=1200 . In the plane perpendicular to the junction , half power beam width =25-300 .

b)Light Source Material

Semiconductor material used for active layer of an optical source must have a direct band gap material radiative recombination is sufficiently high. That means in a direct bandgap semiconductor eand holes can recombine directly across the bandgap without needing a third particle to conserve momentum. Normal single element semiconductor are not direct bndgap material, but many binary compounds are direct bandgap material.

b)Light Source Material

Most important of these are so called as III-V group material made from compound of a group III element(Al,Ga & Tn) & a group V element eg(P,As & Sb). For operation in 800 to 900nm spectrum, principle material is ternary alloy Ga1-x Alx As. Where, x ratio Gallium Arsenide.

of

Aluminum Arsenic to

Determines the bandgap, corresponding the wavelength of the peak emitted radiation.

b)Light Source Material

b)Light Source Material

x=0.08 is given by

The emission spectrum of a Ga1-x Alx As LED with

b)Light Source Material

Peak output power at 810nm. FWHM spectral width of the spectral path

at its half power point is known as full width half maximum(FWHM) spectral width. At alonger wavelength primary material is Quaternary alloy, In1-xGaxAsy P1-y .

b)Light Source Material

By varying mole fraction x & y output peak power at

wavelength between energy E and frequency is, E=h=hc/, the quick efficient wavelength in m can be expressed as a function of the bandgap energy Eg in electron volts by the equation in m as. (m)=1.240/(Eg(eV))

For ternary alloy Ga1-x Alx As the bandgap energy in eV

is, Eg=1.424+1.266x+.266x2 For quaternary alloy In1-x Gax Asy P1-y the bandgap energy in eV is given by Eg=1.35-.72y+.12y2

b)Light Source Material

FWHM spectral width

in 800nm region is 35nm in 1300nm to 1600nm region is 70 to 180nm. The output spectral width of the surface emitting LEDs tend to be broader than those of edge emitting LEDs because of different internal absorption effect of the emitted light in the two device structure.

c)Quantum efficiency & LED Power

An excess of electrons and holes in p & n

type material respectively(refered as minority carriers) iscreated in a semiconductor light source by carrier injection at the device contacts. The excess densities of electrons & holes are equal. The excess carrier can recombine either radiatively or non radiatively.

 In radiative recombination a photon of energy h

which is approximately equal to bandgap energy which is emitted and thee non rdiative recombination effects include optical absorption in the active region etc. When there is a constant current flow into a LED an equilibrium is established i.e., the excess density of e- s n & holes p is equal since the injection carrier are created & recombined in pair such that charge nutrality is maintained within the device.

 The total rate at which carrier are generated is the sum

of externally supplied & the internally generated rates. The externally supplied rate is J/qd. j Current density in A/cm2 q Electron charhe d thickness of the recombination ragion Thermally generated rate is n/ n Excess carrier density Time constant, carrier life time.

 Hence the rate equation for carrier recombination in

an LED is The equilibrium condition is frmed by setting above equation to zero. i.e., => This relation gives the steady state electron density in the active region. When a constant current is flowing through it. Internal quantum efficiency.