UNIT 2

TRANSMISSION
CHARACTERISTICS OF
OPTICAL FIBERS

 Transmission

characteristics are most

important when optical fibers are
selected for communications.
The two important transmission
properties of an optical fiber are
- Attenuation
- Bandwidth
For a long distance communication, fiber
leads to fiber loss/ signal loss or
attenuation

Due to attenuation, fiber needs many

repeaters. Since amplifiers and repeaters
are expensive to fabricate, install and
maintain attenuation increases system
cost.
Signal distortion cause signal pulse to
broaden when they travel along the fiber.
If the signal pulses travel sufficiently far,
they will eventually overlap with
neighboring pulses there by creating
errors at the receiver output.
Thus information carrying capacity of the
fiber is limited.

Attenuation
The decay of signal strength when light
passes through the length of fibers is
called attenuation.
It is basically caused by
- absorption
- Scattering losses
- Bending loss
- Core and cladding loss

Signal attenuation within optical fibers is

usually expressed in the logarithmic unit
of the decibel.
The decibel, which is used for comparing
two power levels, may be defined for a
particular optical wavelength as the ratio of
the output optical power Po from the fiber to
the input optical power Pi.

dBm

Material Absorption
Material absorption is a loss mechanism
related to both the material composition
and the fabrication process of the fiber. The
optical power is lost as heat in the fiber.
The light absorption can is caused by 3
different mechanisms
- Absorption by atomic defects in the
glass composition
- Intrinsic absorption by impurity atoms
of the fiber material.
- Extrinsic absorption by impurity atoms
in the glass material

Absorption by atomic defects

Atomic defects are imperfections in the
atomic structure of the fiber material. eg:
missing molecules
Usually absorption due to these defects
are very small compared to intrinsic and
extrinsic absorption.
When fiber is exposed to radiation
(nuclear reactor) damages are caused in
the internal structure of the fiber
resulting in attenuation due to atomic
defects

Intrinsic absorption
It is associated with the basic fiber material
(pure silica)
It results from electronic absorption bands
in the UV region and from atomic vibration
bands in the near infrared region
In UV region absorption occurs when a
photon interacts with an electron in the
valance band and excites it to a higher
energy level.
In near infrared region absorption is due to
the presence of OH ions.

Fundamental fiber attenuation characteristics

UV absorption :
The tail of this peak may
extend into the shorter
wavelengths of the fiber
transmission spectral
window.
IR absorption:
The tail of these
absorption peaks may
extend into the longer
wavelengths of the fiber
transmission spectral
window.

Extrinsic absorption
This is due to the transition of metal
impurity ions such as iron, cobalt, copper,
chromium between energy levels.
It is also caused by OH- ions that are
dissolved in the glass and these will cause
vibrations which occur at wavelengths
between (2.7 4.2 m)
These fundamental vibrations give rise to
overtones appearing almost harmonically
at 1.38, 0.95 & 0.72m.

Overtones due to Fundamental

vibrations

SCATTERING LOSS
This occurs due to the variations in the
material density and composition
Glass is composed of a randomly
connected network of molecules. Such a
structure naturally contains regions in
which the molecular density is either
higher or lower than the average density
in the glass.
The glass is made up of several oxides
such as Geo2 , Sio2 , P2o5
To change the RI, compositional
fluctuations can occur

Index variations cause a Rayleigh type of

scattering of light.
Scattering loss decreases as wavelength
increases,
scat = 1/

BENDING LOSS
This occurs due to the bending of fibers
Small amount of optical energy is radiated
due to bending
Fibers can be subjected to 2 types of
bends,
-Macroscopic bends : The fibers with
macroscopic bends have radii that are
large compared to the fiber diameter

-Microscopic bends: These bends arise

when the fibers are incorporated into
cables
As the radius of curvature decreases the
loss increases exponentially
The number of modes in a curved mode
is different from that of straight fiber.
Radius of curvature of fiber bend,
R = 3n12/4(n12-n22)1/2

Dispersion
An optical weakens from attenuation
mechanisms and broadens due to
distortion effects as it travels along a fiber.
So due to broadening, the neighboring
pulses will overlap. After a certain amount
of overlap occurs the receiver can no
longer distinguish the individual pulses
and errors arise when detecting the signal.
This effect is called Dispersion

Due to dispersion pulse broadening takes

place when a light pulse travels along a
fiber.
The dispersion properties determine the
limit of the information capacity of the
fiber.
Information capacity is specified by
Bandwidth distance product = BoptxL
The Bandwidth is given by Bopt = 1/
where = input pulse duration

There are two types of dispersion

- intermodal dispersion
- intramodal dispersion
Intermodal dispersion occurs only in
multimode fibers
Intramodal dispersion is pulse spreading
that takes place within a single mode.
The velocity at which energy in a pulse
travels along a fiber is known as Group
velocity (Vg)

Intramodal dispersion or Chromatic dispersion

This type of dispersion may occur in all

types of optical fiber and results from the
optical source.
Since optical sources do not emit just a
single frequency but a band of frequencies,
then there may be propagation delay
differences between the different spectral
components of the transmitted light.
This is called broadening of pulses within a
mode hence the name intramodal
dispersion

There are two main causes if intramodal

dispersion,
- material dispersion
- waveguide dispersion
Material dispersion: Pulse broadening due
to material dispersion results from the
different group velocities of the various
spectral components launched into the
fiber from the optical source.

 Waveguide

dispersion: Single mode

confines 80% of power in core and 20% in
cladding and ray travels faster in cladding
with different group velocity than the
core.
Due to this pulse broadening takes place.

Multimode Graded index fiber

Intermodal

dispersion in
multimode fibers is minimized
with the use of graded index
fibers.
The delay difference Tg =
Ln12/2c
2
g = Ln1 /203 c

Modal Noise

The intermodal dispersion properties of

optical fibers effects the transmitted signals
on the optical channel.
When a light from a coherent laser is
launched into a multimode fiber normally a
number of propagating modes of the fiber
are excited. As long as these modes retain
their relative phase coherence, the radiation
pattern at the end of the fiber form a
speckle pattern.
This is the result of constructive or
destructive interference between
propagating modes at any given plane.

Modal noise occurs when,

Source frequency width intermodal
dispersion time
i.e., f >>1/T
Mode coupling:
The coupling between guided modes
transfers optical power from the slower
to the faster modes and vice versa
Hence, with strong coupling the optical
power tends to be transmitted at an
average speed . This reduces the
intermodal dispersion on the link.