Optical Fibers: History, Structure and the Weakly

Guided Solution

May 30, 2008

Physics 464
Dr. La Rosa
Portland State University

by
Taylor Bilyeu

Abstract
In this paper, I will talk about the history and development of fiber optics,
characteristics and uses for single mode fibers, as well as SI and GI multimode fibers. The bulk of the paper will be the derivation of the vectorial
wave equation and finding the linearly polarized modes of a SI fiber. To
finish, I used the weakly guided approximation to compute the cutoff
wavelength for a corning SMF-28 optical fiber, which I found to be
~1500nm, whereas the actual operating range is from about 1400-1550, with
the least attenuation in the 1550nm range.

Introduction
In todays world, the transmission of information over both short and long
distances is vital. Optical fibers play a key role in these transmissions, and
will continue to do so as we move forward. It is a growing field with job
opportunities spanning a variety of scientific fields, and I believe knowledge
of the topic will serve me well in the future.
In this paper, I will begin by talking briefly about the discovery and origins
of optical fibers. I will then move on to discuss the structure and uses for
some different types of fiber, such as single-mode, multi-mode, step index,
and graded index fibers, as well as several modes of information loss in
these fibers.
Using Maxwells equations as a starting point, I will use a series of
substitutions to derive a vectorial wave equation/Helmholtz equation for an
optical fiber. Then, assuming <1% change in refractive index between the
core and cladding, I use the weakly guided approximation to find linearly
polarized solutions of our wave equation. Finally, as an example I will use
our solution along with the physical specifications of a SMF-28 optical fiber
to compare some calculated values with the manufacturers information.

Content
History
The earliest attempts at optical communication date back to the 1790s,
when Claude Chappe of France invented what is now termed as the optical
telegraph. Various lights mounted atop large towers with human operators

would flash signals to nearby towers. In the 1840s, two physicists, Daniel
Collodon and Jacques Babinet demonstrated the transmission of light along
tubes of water in fountain displays. This led to the now popularized 1854
experiments of John Tyndall, which is seen by many as the true beginning of
fiber optics. In this demonstration, a jet of water was
allowed to flow out of a pipe in the side of a container; light was angled such
that it entered and then exited the container through the jet of water flowing
from the pipe, and bent with the water as the jet fell to a container below.

was essentially an all glass fiber that was

In the 1950s, Brian OBrien,used to transmit images. The lack of a
Narinder Kapany and colleaguescladding
resulted
in
excess.
developed the fiberscope, which
sive loss, and prompted the development of more sophisticated and modern
fibers. Successive improvements on the general design were made over the
next 20 years, and in 1970 scientists at Corning Glass Works
doped extremely pure silica glassmaterial meant that for the first time
with titanium, resulting in a glassoptical fiber was a viable means for large
with less than 20 dB/kmscale transmission of information, and the
attenuation. Such a low lossmodern era of fiber optics had begun.

Types of Fibers
In general an optical fiber consists of an inner core of doped silica glass,
with an outer core of similar material but with a slightly lower index of
refraction. This causes a light signal to be trapped within and transmitted
along the core. In the simplest case, the refractive indices are uniform

within the core and cladding respectively. This is called a step-index(SI)

fiber. In a graded-index(GI) fiber, the index of the core can have a variety of
different patterns, allowing for specialized fibers for different applications.
Only modes of light entering the core through the cone of acceptance will
propagate in the fiber. The cone of acceptance is simply the cone,
concentric with the lateral axis of the fiber and bounded by an angle
relative to the axis, above which the light beam will not achieve total
internal reflection.

One of the most common types of fibers is the single mode SI optical fiber.
In this case, the core of the fiber is very small, generally 8 microns or less,
with the result that the cone of acceptance only allows one mode to
propagate. This fiber is most often used for transmission over large
distances since there is no interference between modes and the shallower
angle results in fewer contacts with the cladding and thus less dispersion.

In a multimode SI fiber, the core is significantly bigger when compared to a

single mode fiber, about 100 microns. The larger diameter results in a larger
cone of acceptance and therefore more modes are allowed to propagate
inside the fiber. One problem with this type of fiber is modal dispersion. For
instance, different parts of the same image can be transmitted down a fiber
by a number of different modes. Some modes will travel faster than others,
resulting in interference and different parts of the image being received at
different times. For this reason, step-index multimode fibers are generally
used for illumination or data transmission over relatively short ranges.

One way to prevent modal dispersion when transmitting multiple modes is to

use a GI core multimode fiber. In this, the refractive index gradually lowers
from the center of the core to the cladding. What happens then is that a
mode will speed up the further it gets from the center of the core, and it
gradually bends rather than reflecting in a cusp at the cladding interface.
The increased speed near the cladding allows modes that come in at a
steeper angle to propagate down the fiber at roughly
the same speed, and interference, as well as transmission delay is minimized.
Dispersion still exists nevertheless, and GI multimode fibers are also used
for transmission over short rangers, but more reliably. A summary of the
types of fibers talked about here is given in the table below

Solutions
Now that I have talked about a few types of fibers, Ill use Maxwells
equations to find a solution for the modes propagating in a SI fiber. To
begin, I will use Maxwells equations for electromagnetic waves in matter,
along with a few other well known equations of electromagnetism, to derive
a vectorial wave equation.

E & M Equations :

Maxwell's equations in matter :

D
E = , = 0 r

B
= , = 0 r
H

J = t

D =

E = B

B = 0

D
+J
H =
t

(1.1)

For this derivation, we must also use the phasor representations of the
electric and magnetic fields and flux densities, as shown below.
E(r , t ) = Re E(r)eit
H (r , t ) = Re H (r)eit
D(r , t ) = Re D(r)eit
B(r , t ) = Re B(r)eit

By substituting these expressions into Maxwells equations (1), we get the

following set of equations:
E = iE = io H (assumed r = 1 and = 0)

(1.2)

H = i D = i E
H=0

(1.3)
(1.4)

( r E ) = 0

(1.5)

Next, we can apply a vectorial rotation operator to equation (1.2), and

follow that by applying a vector product rule to the left-hand side.

 ( E) = i0 H

(1.6)

( E) = ( E) 2 E

(vector product rule)

(1.7)

Next, we apply another vector product rule to equation (1.5) and rearrange it,
giving us equation (1.9) below.
( r E) = 0 = r E + r E (vector product rule)
E=

(1.8)
(1.9)

Plugging equation (1.9) into the right hand side of equation (1.7) gives us the
following:

( E) = r E 2 E
r

However, we can also substitute equation (1.3) into the right hand side of
equation (1.6), giving us
io H = 2 o E = ko 2 r E

k0 = , k = ko n = ko r
c0

Therefore, we have the following relation:

2 E + r E + k 2E = 0
r

This is the vectorial wave equation that we set out to find. Using a similar
method, we would get the following wave equation for the magnetic field.

2H +

( H ) + k 2H = 0

We can further simplify these equations by making the assumption that the
fiber we will be evaluating is axially uniform, along the direction of
propagation. If this is true, which it must be, and we let the direction of

propagation be the z-direction, we can treat the derivative as an operator

= i . here is the z-component of the wave number k. Furthermore,

z

we can use the notation 2 + = 2 , giving us:

z

2 E + r E + (k 2 2 )E = 0 neff =
k0
r

2
2 E + r E + k02 ( r neff
)E = 0

2
)H = 0
2 H + r ( H) + k02 ( r neff

(1.10)
(1.11)

Now that we have a wave equation, we will apply it to the simplest case.
Next I find what is known as the weak solution or linearly polarized modes
of an optical fiber, but we must make a very particular assumption. It must
be assumed that the change in the index of refraction between the core and
cladding is very small, <1% as a general rule of thumb. This gives us only
an approximation and it is only valid for SI fibers, but the results are very
telling, and we end up with a simple formula that allows one to design a SI
fiber so that it will be either single mode or multi mode. We will assume
that n1 is the index within the core of radius (a) and n2 is the index of the
cladding.
To begin with, we assume that the relative permittivity r is constant in the
medium, which reduces equations (1.10) and (1.11) to the following
equations, otherwise known as Helmholtz equations:
2
2 E + k02 ( r neff
)E = 0

(2.1)

2
2 H + k02 ( r neff
)H = 0

(2.2)

Next, I will rewrite the Laplacian in cylindrical coordinates, a relatively easy

application of the chain rule which can be found in the covers of many
books, and so it is not important to cover in detail here.

2 1 1 2
2
+
+
= 2+
r r r 2 2 z 2
r
2

We will solve equation 2.1, using the assumption that the tangential electric
field components in the x or y directions are given by the following:

Ex,y = R(r )( )
Substituting this expression along with the cylindrical representation of the
Laplacian into equation (2.1), and multiplying the resulting equation by
r2
, we get:
R(r )( )

r 2 2 R(r ) 1 R(r ) 2 2
1 2 ( )
2
+

+ r k0 ( r neff ) =
R(r ) r 2
r r
( ) 2
Since there is now an expression in terms of r on the left side, and one in
terms of on the right, it must be true that both sides are equal to some
constant, which can be called l 2 .
r 2 2 R(r ) 1 R(r ) 2 2
1 2 ( )
2

+
+
r
k
(

n
)
=
= l2

0
r
eff
2
2
( )
R(r ) r
r r

(2.3)

This gives us two separate ordinary differential equations:

d 2 ( ) 2
+ l ( ) = 0
d 2
2
l2
d 2 R(r ) 1 dR(r )
2
+
+ R(r ) k0 ( r neff ) 2 = 0
dr 2
r dr
r

The first equation is quite simple and easily solved, so here I just present the
solution, in this case l is an integer and is an arbitrary phase constant.

( ) = sin(l + )

(2.4)

The second equation is more difficult, and to start with Ill use a few
substitutions and then apply the chain rule to get a simpler equation with
regards to new variables.

%u 2 k 2 ( n 2 )
0
r
eff
%
ur
d
d d % d
=
=u
dr d dr
d
d 2 % d 2 d % 2 d 2
=u 2
=u
dr 2
d dr
d 2
Substituting these expressions into the second differential equation above,
we get
2
2

%u 2 d R(r ) + 1 u% dR(r ) + u% 2 l
R(r ) = 0

% )2
d 2
dr
u%

(
u

d 2 R(r ) 1 dR(r ) l 2
+
+ 1 2 R(r ) = 0
dr
d 2

Solutions for this equation, which I have again left out for the sake of
brevity, are the l th-order Bessel functions below.
A J ur + BN ur for ra
l a
l a
R(r ) =
wr
wr
CKl a + DIl a for ra

(2.5)

and Nl are l th-order Bessel functions of the first and second kinds, while
Kl and I l are l th-order modified Bessel functions of the first and second
kinds. The variables u and w in equation (2.5) are defined below, along with
a new variable v.
Jl

2
u 2 = k 02 a 2 ( r1 neff
)
2
w2 = k 02 a 2 (neff
r2 )

u 2 + w2 = v 2
v = ko a r1 r 2

(2.6)

The parameter v is the normalized frequency, while u and w are the

normalized lateral propagation constant in the core and the normalized
lateral decay constant in the cladding, respectively.
Since the functions Nl and Il are divergent over certain ranges, their
coefficients must be zero, giving us the following expression:

A J ur for ra
l a
R (r ) =
wr
CKl a for ra

To solve for the remaining coefficients A and C, we use the boundary

condition that the function R must have the same value when approaching
the core/cladding interface from both the left and right sides, and it also must
be continuous. These conditions lead to the following relations:

R(a + ) = R(a )

A J l (u ) CK l ( w) = 0

dR (a + ) dR (a )
A uJ l(u ) CwK l( w)
=
dr
dr

These equations can be written in matrix notation,

J l (u ) Kl ( w) A
uJ (u ) wK ( w) C = 0 .
l
l

If A and C are nontrivial, then the determinant of the coefficient matrix must
be zero, so

J l (u ) Kl ( w)
= 0.
uJ l(u ) wK l( w)
Evaluating the determinant and rearranging, we get the following
characteristic equation:
uJ l(u ) wK l( w)
=
J l (u )
K l ( w)

(2.7)

Equation (2.6) can be rewritten for modes, which as I stated earlier are called
linearly polarized modes. The manipulation of (2.6) is dependent on a
variety of properties of the Bessel functions, so I will not include the
mathematics involved.
LP0m (l = 0 and m 1) :
J 0 (u )
K ( w)
= 0
uJ1 (u ) wK1 ( w)
LPlm (l 1 and m 1) :
J l (u )
K l ( w)
=
uJ l 1 (u ) wK l 1 ( w)

Now, we get something more meaningful from these characteristic

equations, we see what happens over a range of the parameters. This again

requires more in-depth knowledge of the Bessel function, namely the

asymptotic approximations of said functions. I am again forced to skip the
intermediate mathematics, and go straight to the consequence of taking the
limits of our parameters w and u. First, for the LP0m modes:

As w 0, u v :
K 0 ( w)
J 0 (v )

wK1 ( w)
vJ1 (v)
The second expression implies that either v or J1 (v) approach 0. If we let
v=0, the expression holds, and so the cutoff normalized frequency vc = 0 .
This means that the LP01 mode has no cutoff condition.
For higher order LP0m where m>1, we define jl , m1 as the (m 1) th zero of the
Bessel function of the first kind. Evaluating at the limits of our parameters
as we did above, we see that as v j1,m1+ , the condition above is met and

vc = j1, m 1 .

Similarly, for LPlm modes, we get vc = jl 1, m .

The most important feature of the preceding observations is that there is no

cutoff frequency for the LP01 mode, and the first zero of the Bessel functions
is j0,1 (2.404826). This means that the LP01 is the fundamental mode, and
also that vc = 2.404826 gives the cutoff condition separating single mode and
multi mode operation in a SI optical fiber. One should keep in mind though
that there are technically 2 fundamental modes, corresponding to two
possible polarizations.

Now, look back at equation (2.6) along with the following expressions:

ko =

r1 = n12
r 2 = n2 2
NA = n12 n2 2
Plugging these into equation (2.6), along with our observations of cutoff
frequencies above, we can make the following conclusions:

2 a

NA < 2.404826

(SINGLE MODE)

2 a
NA > 2.404826

(MULTIPLE MODES)

The wavelength corresponding to the value of v is the cutoff wavelength c

and is given by the following equation:
c =

2 a
NA
2.404826

To use a SI fiber in single mode operation, the wavelength of the light being
transmitted must exceed that of c . As an example, we will look at the
Corning SMF-28 optical fiber. According to manufacturer data, the radius
of the core is 4.1 micrometers, with a numerical aperture (NA) of 0.14. The
cutoff frequency is then:
c =

2 (4.1 106 )
(0.14)
2.404826

= 1.4997 106 meters

= 1499.7 nm

The fiber in question is actually operated at a range of different wavelengths,

including wavelengths slightly below the cutoff. This is not too surprising
considering that the linear polarized modes are only an approximation. It is

still a good approximation though, and in fact the fiber gets the least
attenuation at about 1550nm.

Conclusions
There is a vast amount of different fibers that are ideal for different
applications. Existing fibers are being constantly perfected, and new designs
altogether are also being worked on. The design of these fibers requires a
working knowledge of what modes will propagate under what conditions. In
the case of single mode SI fibers, the weakly guided solution whose modes
are linearly polarized is a decent approximation of the hybrid modes which
can be attained through a more exact analytical examination of Maxwells
equations. Any mode with a normalized frequency below about 2.405 will
result in single mode operation. The Corning SIF-28 fiber works best at
about the 1550nm range.

References
http://www.arcelect.com/fibercable.htm
http://www.fiberoptics4sale.com/Merchant2/multimode-fiber.php
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/BesselFunctionZeros.html
http://www.physics.pdx.edu/~larosaa/Applied_Optics_464564/Projects_Presented/Projects-2008/Optical_fiber_SMF-28_Datasheet_%289microns125microns%29.pdf
http://www.sff.net/people/Jeff.Hecht/history.htm
http://www.timbercon.com/History-of-Fiber-Optics/
Chai Yeh, Handbook of Fiber Optics: Theory and Applications. Academic Press, Inc
1990
Katsunari Okamoto, Fundamentals of Optical Waveguides. Academic Press, Inc, 2000
Kenji Kawano and Tsutomu Kitoh, Introduction to Optical Waveguide Analysis. WileyInterscience Publishing, 2001

Step-Index Multimode Fiber