Optoelectronics

Dr. Bilal Ahmad Alvi Professor Chairman of Electronic Department Sir Syed University Of Engineering & Technology

Chromatic Dispersion
Optical Fiber Dispersion

Chromatic Dispersion
The pulse broadening in single-mode bers results almost entirely from chromatic or intramodal dispersion as only a single-mode is allowed to propagate. The Chromatic dispersion is combination of material dispersion and waveguide dispersion. Material dispersion depends on the material properties and difficult to alter Waveguide dispersion depends on waveguide structure and can be altered by changing the fiber refractive index profile

Phase Velocity
The phase velocity of a wave is the rate at which the phase of the wave propagates in space. This is the velocity at which the phase of any one frequency component of the wave travels. Any given phase of the wave (for example, the crest) will appear to travel at the phase velocity. The phase velocity is given in terms of the wavelength (lambda) and period T as

 Or, equivalently, in terms of the wave's angular frequency , which specifies the number of oscillations per unit of time, and wavenumber k, which specifies the number of oscillations per unit of space, by

Spectral Linewidth
Real sources emit over a range of wavelengths. This range is the source linewidth or spectral width. The smaller is the linewidth, the smaller is the spread in wavelengths or frequencies, the more coherent is the source.
intensity1.0 0.5

Dl linewidth l(nm)

lo

*In the case of the semiconductor laser Dl corresponds to only a fraction of % of the centre wavelength lo. For LEDs, Dl is likely to be a significant percentage of lo. 34

Spectral linewidth
An ideal perfectly coherent source emits light at a single wavelength. It has zero linewidth and is perfectly monochromatic.

Light sources Light-emitting diodes Semiconductor laser diodes Nd:YAG solid-state lasers HeNe gas lasers

Linewidth (nm) 20 nm - 100 nm 1 nm - 5 nm 0.1 nm 0.002 nm

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Group Delay
Consider a fiber cable carrying optical signal equally with various modes and each mode contains all the spectral components in the wavelength band. All the spectral components travel independently and they observe different time delay and group delay in the direction of propagation. The velocity at which the energy in a pulse travels along the fiber is known as group velocity .

Chromatic Dispersion in Optical Fiber

A high-speed pulse contains a spectrum of l components

24.01.2006

Lecture 3

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 Pulse broadening occurs because there may be propagation delay differences among the spectral components of the transmitted signal.
input pulse broadened pulse

single mode
lo+(Dl/2) lo lo-(Dl/2)

L
Different spectral components have different time delays => pulse broadening time

Arrives last

Arrives first
time

Chromatic dispersion (CD): Different spectral components of a pulse travel at different group velocities. This is known as group velocity dispersion (GVD). 36

Group velocity is given by

summary
Because the energy of a harmonic wave is proportional to the square of its field amplitude, the energy carried by a wave packet that is composed of many frequency components is concentrated in regions where the amplitude of the envelope is large.

Therefore, the energy in a wave packet is transported at group velocity vg.

The constant-phase wavefront travels at the phase velocity, but the group velocity is the velocity at which energy (and information) travel Any information signal is a wave packet, and thus travels at the group velocity, not at the phase velocity.
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 Material dispersion exists due to change in index of refraction for different wavelengths. The speed of light is dependent on the refractive index

Material Dispersion

where c0 is the speed of light in a vacuum The index of refraction, n, varies with the light transmission wavelength A light ray contains components of various wavelengths centered at wavelength . The time delay is different for different wavelength components. This results in time dispersion of pulse at the receiving end of fiber. The material dispersion for unit length L=1 is given by

Second derivative of index of refraction w.r.t wavelength Negative sign shows that the upper sideband signal (lowest wavelength) arrives before the lower sideband (highest wavelength).

Dispersion parameter
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Fused silica
20

1276 nm
10

Anomalous (D > 0)
1400 1500 1600 1700

0 1100
-10

1200

1300

Wavelength (nm) Normal (D < 0)

-20 -30

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 Anomalous dispersion:
short

Dispersive properties
D>0

wavelength components (blue) travel faster than long wavelength components (red)

Normal dispersion:

D<0

long wavelength components (red) travel faster than short wavelength components (blue)

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Zero-dispersion wavelength
Material dispersion Dmat = 0 at l ~ 1276 nm for fused silica. This l is referred to as the zero-dispersion wavelength lZD.

Chromatic (or material) dispersion D(m) can be zero; or negative => longer wavelengths travel faster than shorter wavelengths; or positive => shorter wavelengths travel faster than longer wavelengths.

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waveguide dispersion
Waveguide dispersion is caused by the difference in the index of refraction between the core and cladding, resulting in a drag effect between the core and cladding portions of the power. Waveguide dispersion is significant only in fibers carrying fewer than 5-10 modes. Since multimode optical fibers carry hundreds of modes, they will not have observable waveguide dispersion. The group delay (wg ) arising due to waveguide dispersion.

 The waveguide dispersion parameter D W , can defined as

where V is the normalized frequency for the ber.

Waveguide dispersion in a single-mode fiber

input pulse ncore nclad Singlemode fiber core pulse slower cladding pulse faster time => broadened pulse ! Waveguide dispersion depends on the mode field distribution in the core and the cladding. (given by the fiber V number)
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Chromatic Dispersion
The combination of material dispersion and waveguide dispersion is called chromatic dispersion. These losses primarily concern the spectral width of transmitter and choice of correct wavelength. Material dispersion and waveguide dispersion effects vary in vary in opposite senses as the wavelength increased, but at an optimum wavelength around 1300 nm, two effects almost cancel each other and chromatic dispersion is at minimum. Attenuation is therefore also at minimum and makes 1300 nm a highly attractive operating wavelength.
=> D(CH) = Dmat + Dwg

Dispersion coefficient (ps km-1 nm-1)

20 10 0 10 20 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5

SiO2-13.5%GeO2

Dm

Dw

a (m)
4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5

1.6

(m)
Material and waveguide dispersion coefficients in an optical fiber with a core SiO 2-13.5%GeO2 for a = 2.5 to 4 m.
1999 S.O. Kasap,Optoelectronics (Prentice Hall)

Dispersion coefficient (ps km 30 20 10 0 -10 -20 -30 1.1 1.2

Zero Dispersion Wavelength

-1

nm-1 )

Dm Dm + Dw
Dw

1.3

1.4 ( m)

1.5

1.6

Material dispersion coefficient (Dm) for the core material (taken as SiO2 ), waveguide dispersion coefficient (Dw ) (a = 4.2 m) and the total or chromatic dispersion coefficient Dch (= Dm + Dw ) as a function of free space wavelength,

Modifying Chromatic Dispersion

Chromatic Dispersion = Material dispersion + Waveguide dispersion Material dispersion depends on the material properties and difficult to alter Waveguide dispersion can be altered by changing the fiber refractive index profile
1300 nm optimized Dispersion Shifting (to 1550 nm) Dispersion Flattening (from 1300 to 1550 nm)

Different Index Profiles

1300 nm optimized

Dispersion Shifted

Different Index Profiles

Dispersion Flattened

Large area dispersion shifted

Large area dispersion flattened

Different dispersion profiles

Dispersion Shifting/Flattening

Fiber birefringence
In ideal fibers with perfect rotational symmetry, the two modes are degenerate with equal propagation constants (x = y), and any polarization state injected into the fiber will propagate unchanged. In actual fibers there are imperfections, such as asymmetrical lateral stresses, non-circular cores and variations in refractive-index profiles. These imperfections break the circular symmetry of the ideal fiber and lift the degeneracy of the two modes. The modes propagate with different phase velocities, and the difference between their effective refractive indices is called the fiber birefringence, B = |ny nx|

Fiber birefringence

Lbeat = / B ~ 1 m (B ~ 10-6)

Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD)

In a single-mode optical fiber, the optical signal is carried by the linearly polarized fundamental mode LP01, which has two polarization components that are orthogonal.

(note that x and y are chosen arbitrarily)

In a real fiber (i.e. ngx ngy), the two orthogonal polarization modes propagate at different group velocities, resulting in pulse broadening - polarization mode dispersion. 76

Ey

Ey

DT

vgy = c/ngy
Ex
vgx = c/ngx vgy

t Single-mode fiber L km

Ex

*1. Pulse broadening due to the orthogonal polarization modes (The time delay between the two polarization components is characterized as the differential group delay (DGD).) 2. Polarization varies along the fiber length
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 The refractive index difference is known as birefringence. B = nx - ny

(~ 10-6 - 10-5 for single-mode fibers)

assuming nx > ny => y is the fast axis, x is the slow axis.

*B varies randomly because of thermal and mechanical stresses over time (due to randomly varying environmental factors in submarine, terrestrial, aerial, and buried fiber cables). => PMD is a statistical process
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Randomly varying birefringence along the fiber

y E
Principal axes

x Elliptical polarization

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 The polarization state of light propagating in fibers with randomly varying birefringence will generally be elliptical and would quickly reach a state of arbitrary polarization.

*However, the final polarization state is not of concern for most lightwave systems as photodetectors are insensitive to the state of polarization. (Note: recent technology developments in Coherent Optical Communications do require polarization state to be analyzed.)
A simple model of PMD divides the fiber into a large number of segments. Both the magnitude of birefringence B and the orientation of the principal axes remain constant in each section but changes randomly from section to section.
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A simple model of PMD

B0 B1 B2 B3

Lo Ex Ey

L1

L2

L3

t Randomly changing differential group delay (DGD)

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 Pulse broadening caused by a random change of fiber polarization properties is known as polarization mode dispersion (PMD). DTPMD = DPMD

PMD pulse broadening

L km.

DPMD is the PMD parameter (coefficient) measured in ps/

L models the random nature (like random walk) * DPMD does not depend on wavelength ;
*Todays fiber (since 90s) PMD parameter is 0.1 - 0.5 ps/ km. (Legacy fibers deployed in the 80s have DPMD > 0.8 ps/ km.)
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e.g. Calculate the pulse broadening caused by PMD for a singlemode fiber with a PMD parameter DPMD ~ 0.5 ps/ km and a fiber length of 100 km. (i.e. DTPMD = 5 ps)

Recall that pulse broadening due to chromatic dispersion for a 1 nm linewidth light source was ~ 15 ps/km, which resulted in 1500 ps for 100 km of fiber length.
=> PMD pulse broadening is orders of magnitude less than chromatic dispersion !

*PMD is relatively small compared with chromatic dispersion. But when one operates at zero-dispersion wavelength (or dispersion compensated wavelengths) with narrow spectral width, PMD can become a significant component of the total dispersion.
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So why do we care about PMD?

Recall that chromatic dispersion can be compensated to ~ 0, (at least for single wavelengths, namely, by designing proper -ve waveguide dispersion)
but there is no simple way to eliminate PMD completely. => It is PMD that limits the fiber bandwidth after chromatic dispersion is compensated!

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 PMD is of lesser concern in lower data rate systems. At lower transmission speeds (up to and including 10 Gb/s), networks have higher tolerances to all types of dispersion, including PMD. As data rate increases, the dispersion tolerance reduces significantly, creating a need to control PMD as much as possible at the current 40 Gb/s system.

e.g. The pulse broadening caused by PMD for a singlemode fiber with a PMD parameter of 0.5 ps/ km and a fiber length of 100 km => 5 ps. However, this is comparable to the 40G bit period = 25 ps !
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Polarizing effects of conventional / polarizationpreserving fibers

Unpol. input conventional Pol. input Unknown output (random coupling between all the polarizations present) Unknown output

Unpol. input polarizationpreserving Pol. input

Unknown output

Pol. output

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Polarization-preserving fibers
The fiber birefringence is enhanced in single-mode polarization-preserving (polarization-maintaining) fibers, which are designed to maintain the polarization of the launched wave. Polarization is preserved because the two possible waves have significantly different propagation characteristics. This keeps them from exchanging energy as they propagate through the fiber. Polarization-preserving fibers are constructed by designing asymmetries into the fiber. Examples include fibers with elliptical cores (which cause waves polarized along the major and minor axes of the ellipse to have different effective refractive indices) and fibers that contain nonsymmetrical stress-producing parts.
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Polarization-preserving fibers

Elliptical-core fiber

bow-tie fiber

The shaded region in the bow-tie fiber is highly doped with a material such as boron. Because the thermal expansion of this doped region is so different from that of the pure silica cladding, a nonsymmetrical stress is exerted on the core. This produces a large stress-induced birefringence, which in turn decouples the 88 two orthogonal modes of the singlemode fiber.

Panda

ITU-T Recommendations for Fibers (1)

ITU-T Recommendations for Fibers (2)

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Total Dispersion
For Single Mode Fibers: For Multi Mode Fibers:

Group Velocity Dispersion If PMD is negligible