FIBER OPTICS- LINES (CABLES)

Introduction
An optical fibre is a glass or plastic fibre designed to guide light along its length by total internal reflection

Advantages
Large Bandwidth BW f BW at optical frequencies > BW at Microwave freq Low Loss Good signal to noise ratio

Comparison
Compared to other transmission media fiber optics have infinite bandwidth ( more than 25 THz) For radio transmission the useful band is 100 GHz For coaxial cable the bandwidth is 800 to 1000MHz For a pair of wires around 200-300 MHz.

Comparison with other media

Satellite Point to Multi-point BW ~ GHz

Fibre Optics Point to point BW ~ THz

Maintenance free
Short life ~7-8 Yr

Needs Maintenance
Long life

No upgradeability Mobile, air, sea

Upgradeable
On ground only

Advantages of Fiber Optic Cable Over Copper Speed: Operate at high speeds - up into the gigabits
Bandwidth: Large carrying capacity Distance: Signals can be transmitted further without needing to be "refreshed" or strengthened. Resistance: Greater resistance to electromagnetic noise such as radios, motors or other nearby cables. Attenuation: Low attenuation loss over long distances. Better Signal security and no cross talk Maintenance: Fiber optic cables costs much less to maintain Light weight and small diameter cables

Structure
Hair-thin fibers consist of two concentric layers of high-purity silica glass the core and the cladding, which are enclosed by a protective sheath. The light stays confined to the core because the cladding has a lower refractive index refractive indexa measure of its ability to bend light.

Core: - It is made of highly purified glass. Most of the light energy in confined to the core. Cladding: - It is a concentric glass shell surrounding the core. The cladding shields optical fields so as not to get interfered by the outer layers of the fibre. Buffer coating: - The cladding is surrounded by the buffer layers. These layers have no role in propagation of light. They are essentially there to provide the mechanical support to the glass fibre and to protect the fibre from external damage

Refractive Index in Optical Fibers

The refractive index of a medium is a measure for how much the speed of light (or other waves such as sound waves) is reduced inside the medium. Light rays change direction when they cross the interface from air to the material . The larger the angle to the normal, the smaller is the fraction of light transmitted, until the angle when total internal reflection occurs.

The refractive index of a medium is the ratio of the phase velocity c of a wave phenomenon such as light or sound in a reference medium to the phase velocity vp in the medium itself =/
Total Internal Reflection

 If the angle of incidence, 1 is greater than the critical angle, c given by

where n1 and n2 are the refractive indices of the two media, then the light is Total Internally Reflected in medium 1. There is no refracted ray in that case.

Numerical Aperture (NA)of a Fiber Optic

NA, sin m measure of the power launched efficiently into an optical fibre. for good light launching efficiency, m should be as large as possible and n12should be large compared to n22 N.A = sin m= ( ) n0 If the medium outside the fibre is air, n0 = 1

Acceptance Angle (AA)

The cone of acceptance of light into the core Light rays approaching the fibre within this cone will undergo total internal reflection at the core-cladding interfaces, and will be trapped within the fibre. Any rays which arrive at larger angles of incidence will not be trapped properly, but will refract away into the cladding and be lost.

AA= m = sin -1 N.A = sin -1 ( ) n0

Function of the Fiber Cable System.

Fiber optic cable functions as a "light guide," guiding the light introduced at one end of the cable through to the other end. The light source can either be a light-emitting diode (LED) or a laser Total internal reflection confines light within the optical fiber, because the cladding has a lower refractive index light rays reflect back into the core if they encounter the cladding at a shallow angle. A ray that exceeds a certain "critical" angle escapes from the fiber

 The transmitter is the place of origin for information coming on to fiber-optic lines. The transmitter accepts coded electronic pulse information coming from copper wire. It then processes and translates that information into equivalently coded light pulses. A light-emitting diode (LED) or an injection-laser diode (ILD) can be used for generating the light pulses. Using a lens, the light pulses are funneled into the fiber-optic medium where they transmit themselves down the line.

 Light pulses move easily down the fiber-optic line because of a principle of total internal reflection. The light source is pulsed on and off, and a light-sensitive receiver on the other end of the cable converts the pulses back into the digital ones and zeros of the original signal. Light strengtheners, called repeaters, may be necessary to refresh the signal in certain applications.

 The light source is pulsed on and off, and a lightsensitive receiver on the other end of the cable converts the pulses back into the digital ones and zeros of the original signal. Light strengtheners, called repeaters, may be necessary to refresh the signal in certain applications.

Problems
1. A silica optical fibre has a core refractive index of 1.5 and a cladding refractive index of 1.47. Calculate the Numerical Aperture of the fibre and the critical angle at the core cladding interface 2. An optical fibre has a numerical aperture of 0.15 and a cladding refractive index of 1.55. Determine the critical Angle and acceptance angle of the fibre in water whose refractive index is 1.33

Types of Fibers
Single mode Step Index Fibre Multimode Step Index Fibre Multimode Graded Index Fibre

Single-mode optical fiber

the lowest order bound mode only can propagate at the wavelength of interest typically 1300 to 1320nm. It is a single strand (most applications use 2 fibers) of glass fiber with a diameter of 8.3 to 10 microns that has one mode of transmission. It carries higher bandwidth than multimode fiber.

 The amount of the electromagnetic spectrum that a laser beam covers is called as spectral width . Single mode fiber requires a light source with a narrow spectral width. gives a higher transmission rate and more distance than multimode more costs.

Single-mode fiber.
Single Mode Fiber has a relatively narrow diameter and much smaller core than multimode. eliminate any distortion that could result from overlapping light pulses provide the least signal attenuation and the highest transmission speeds of any fiber cable type. Used in broadband ISDN communication

 Single-mode fiber has a narrow core (eight microns or less) the index of refraction between the core and the cladding changes less than it does for multimode fibers. Light thus travels parallel to the axis, creating little pulse dispersion.

Multi-mode cable
A little bit bigger diameter, with a common diameters in
the 50-to-100 micron range for the light carry component Multimode fiber gives high bandwidth at high speeds (10 to 100 MBS - Gigabit to 275 m to 2 km) over medium distances. Light waves are dispersed into numerous paths, or modes, as they travel through the cable's core typically 850 or 1300 m In long cable runs (greater than 3000 feet [914.4 meters), multiple paths of light can cause signal distortion at the receiving end, resulting in an unclear and incomplete data

Step-Index Multimode Fiber

This has a large core, up to 100 microns in diameter. some of the light rays that make up the digital pulse may travel a direct route, whereas others zigzag as they bounce off the cladding. These alternative pathways cause the different groupings of light rays, referred to as modes, to arrive separately at a receiving point.

 The pulse, an aggregate of different modes, begins to spread out, losing its well-defined shape. The need to leave more spacing between pulses to prevent overlapping This limits bandwidth that is, the amount of information that can be sent. best suited for transmission over short distances.

Graded-Index Multimode Fiber

This contains a core in which the refractive index diminishes gradually from the center axis out toward the cladding. The higher refractive index at the center makes the light rays moving down the axis advance more slowly than those near the cladding. Also, rather than zigzagging off the cladding, light in the periphery curves helically because of the graded index, reducing its travel distance.

 The shortened path and the higher speed allow light at the periphery to arrive at a receiver at about the same time as the slow but straight rays in the core axis. The result: a digital pulse suffers less dispersion.

Wavelength Division Multiplexing

Multiplexes multiple optical carrier signals on a single optical fiber by using different wavelengths (colours) of laser light to carry different signals. This allows for a multiplication in capacity, in addition to enabling bidirectional communications over one strand of fiber

 WDM-applies to an optical carrier (which is typically described by its wavelength), Frequency-Division Multiplexing (FDM)applies to a radio carrier (which is more often described by frequency). since wavelength and frequency are inversely proportional, and since radio and light are both forms of electromagnetic radiation, the two terms are equivalent.

 WDM (Wavelength Division Multiplexing): several baseband-modulated channels are transmitted along a single fiber but with each channel located at a different wavelength The WDM channels are separated in wavelength to avoid cross-talk when they are (de)multiplexed by a non-ideal optical fiber. The wavelengths can be individually routed through a network or individually recovered by wavelengthselective components.

Wavelength Division Multiplexing

Advantages
Transmission speed and bandwidth capacity
increases with the number of wavelengths. Can be used for longer distances Different wavelengths can carry data at different bit rates. Signals arrive at the destination at the same time and not in time slots as in TDM.

Disadvantages
Designing optical amplifiers for WDM systems is much difficult. Separate terminating equipment for each wavelength. Cannot monitor the bit error rates or frame errors in the data.

Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM)

Each lower-speed channel transmitting a bit (or allocation of bits known as a packet) in a given a time slot and waiting its turn to transmit another bit (or packet) after all the other channels have had their opportunity to transmit It is limited by the speed of the time-multiplexing and de multiplexing components.

Comparison between WDM and TDM

 Additional method is the Code-Division Multiplexing (CDM) Instead of each channel occupying a given wavelength, frequency or time slot, each channel transmits its bits as a coded channel-specific sequence of pulses. This coded transmission typically is accomplished by transmitting a unique time-dependent series of short pulses. These short pulses are placed within chip (fragment) times within the larger bit time.

Solitons
The term "soliton" suggests, these solitary waves behave like "particles". any optical field that does not change during propagation because of a delicate balance between nonlinear and linear effects in the medium. A soliton is non dispersive pulse that makes use of nonlinear dispersion properties in a fiber to cancel out chromatic dispersion effects. When they are located mutually far apart, each is approximately a travelling wave with constant shape and velocity.