INTRODUCTION TO OPTICAL FIBRE COMMUNICATIONS

SUBHRA MUKHERJEE

QUESTIONS
1.Are

there cars parked on the sides of the road? many cars? the speed limit?

2.How

3.What's

4.Are

there any pedestrians on the road?

GENERAL AND OPTICAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

FIBER-OPTIC COMMUNICATION

is a method of transmitting information from one place to another by sending light through an optical fiber.

The light forms an electromagnetic carrier wave that is modulated to carry information.

FIBER-OPTIC COMMUNICATION
The process of communicating using fiber-optics involves the following basic steps: Creating the optical signal using a transmitter, relaying the signal along the fiber, ensuring that the signal does not become too distorted or weak, and receiving the optical signal and converting it into an electrical signal.

OPTICAL FIBER

An optical fiber (or fibre) is a glass or plastic fiber that carries light along its length.

An

optical fiber is essentially a waveguide

for light.

Light is kept in the "core" of the optical fiber by total internal reflection.

FIBER OPTIC LAYERS

consists of three concentric sections

plastic jacket

glass or plastic cladding

fiber core

10

REFRACTION & TOTAL INTERNAL REFLECTION

CRITICAL ANGLE, C

The minimum angle of incidence at which a light ray ay strike the interface of two media and result in an angle of refraction of 90 or greater.

ACCEPTANCE ANGLE

The maximum angle in which external light rays may strike the air/glass interface and still propagate down the fiber.

ACCEPTANCE ANGLE /CONE HALF-ANGLE

THE NEED FOR FIBRE OPTIC COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

Shanon Hartley Theorem C = B log 2 ( 1 + SNR) This theorem states that information carrying capacity is proportional to channel bandwidth, the range of frequencies within which the signals can be transmitted without substantial attenuation The operating frequencies of: Copper wire 1 MHz Co-axial cable 100 MHz Microwave-100 GHz Optical fibre 100 to 1000THz.

Thus we can say the information carrying capacity of a telecommunication system is proportional to its bandwidth, which in turn is proportional to the frequency of the carrier. And FOCS uses light A carrier with the highest frequency among all practical signals So definitely FOCS systems have the highest information carrying capacity..

ADVANTAGES OF OPTICAL FIBRE

High bandwidth Long distance signal transmission Light weight and small diameter Immune to EMI and RFI Highly Secure Due its non-electrical nature can be used in many industrial applications

TRANSMISSION WINDOWS

MODE OF PROPAGATION

Two main categories of

optical fiber used in fiber

optic communications are multi-mode optical fiber and single-mode optical fiber.

INDEX PROFILE

The index profile of an optical fiber is a graphical representation of the magnitude of the refractive index across the fiber.

The refractive index is plotted on the horizontal axis, and the radial distance from the core axis is plotted on the vertical axis.

INDEX PROFILE

The between and

boundary the core may cladding

either be abrupt, in
step-index fiber, or gradual, in gradedindex fiber.

STEP-INDEX

A step-index fiber has a central core with a uniform refractive index. An outside cladding that also has a uniform refractive index surrounds the core;

however, the refractive index of the cladding is less than that of the central core.

GRADED-INDEX

In graded-index fiber, the index of refraction in the core decreases continuously between the axis and the cladding. This causes light rays to bend smoothly as they approach the cladding, rather than reflecting abruptly from the core-cladding boundary.

MODES AND MATERIALS

Since optical fiber is a waveguide, light can propagate in a number of modes If a fiber is of large diameter, light entering at different angles will excite different modes while narrow fiber may only excite one mode Multimode propagation will cause dispersion, which results in the spreading of pulses and limits the usable bandwidth Single-mode fiber has much less dispersion but is more expensive to produce. Its small size, together with the fact that its numerical aperture is smaller than that of multimode fiber, makes it more difficult to couple to light sources

TYPES OF FIBER

Both types of fiber described earlier are known as step-index fibers because the index of refraction changes radically between the core and the cladding Graded-index fiber is a compromise multimode fiber, but the index of refraction gradually decreases away from the center of the core Graded-index fiber has less dispersion than a multimode step-index fiber

DISPERSION

Dispersion in fiber optics results from the fact that in multimode propagation, the signal travels faster in some modes than it would in others Single-mode fibers are relatively free from dispersion except for intramodal dispersion Graded-index fibers reduce dispersion by taking advantage of higherorder modes One form of intramodal dispersion is called material dispersion because it depends upon the material of the core Another form of dispersion is called waveguide dispersion Dispersion increases with the bandwidth of the light source

Single mode or mono mode step index fiber has a very thin core of about 5m diameter and has a relatively larger cladding of glass or plastic as shown in the fig.It has a very thin core. A strong monochromatic light source i.e a laser source is used to send light signals through it .It can carry more than 14 TV channels or 14000 phone calls.

This type of fiber has a core of relatively larger diameter about 50m.It is mostly used for carrying white light but due to dispersion effects, it is useful for a short distance only.The fiber core has a constant refractive index n1 (1.5) from center to the boundary on both sides .The cladding has a lower refractive index as 1.48 which remains constant throughout the cladding.This is called step index multimode fiber, because the refractive index steps down from 1.52 to 1.48 at the boundary with the cladding.

APPLICATIONS????