Optical Fibres and Telecommunications

Lecture 5 – Non-linear Effects in Fibre

Dr Tom Brown
Room 284, x3129
[email protected]

Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

Last time

• Impact of dispersion on communications

• Combination of dispersion and attenuation
• Dispersion shifted fibre
• Compensating for dispersion
– Dispersion compensating fibre
– Fibre Bragg gratings
• Polarisation mode dispersion
• Introduction to non-linear effects in fibres

Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

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Non-linear effects in Optical Fibres

• Thus far all the effects we have considered are

independent of the power in the fibre.
• Behaviour that is dependent on the power (intensity) of light
flowing down the fibre are call non-linear optical effects.
• Non-linear effects include:
– Stimulated Scattering
• Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS)
• Stimulated Raman Scattering (SRS)
– Self Phase Modulation (SPM)
• Optical Solitons for long distance communications
– Cross phase modulation effects.
• Four wave mixing (FWM)

Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

Stimulated Scattering

• Increasing intensity above a threshold causes scattering.

• Stimulated scattering is transferring energy from the
incident wave to a wave at lower frequency (longer
wavelength) with the small energy difference being
released in the form of phonons (lattice vibrations.)1
Interaction with lattice phonons
High Intensity Input
Reduced intensity output

Backward travelling Stokes Wave Forward travelling Stokes Wave

Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) Stimulated Raman Scattering (SRS)
1. D.K. Mynbaev and L.L. Scheiner, ‘Fiber-Optic Communications
Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction
Technology’, p.202 (2001)

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Effective length and area

Launched Power, Pin Launched Power, Pin

Power Power

Real Power Real Power

Distribution Distribution

Leff Length (Aeff / π)0.5 Radius

L
Pin Leff = ∫ P ( z )dz (28)
0 Aeff ≈ πw02 (32)
(29)
P(z)=Pin e-αz ≈ πrcore2 (33)
(30)
Leff = 1/α (1-e-αl)
(31)
~ 1/α
Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS)

• SBS moves light backwards (Stokes wave travels towards

the source.)
• Pump light produces acoustic phonons.
• Power of the signal light in the fibre reduced.
• Requires optical isolators to avoid feedback into the
sensitive light source.
• Provides an upper limit of ~100mW for light transmitted in a
single channel.

Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

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SBS

21Aeff
Pth (SBS ) ≈ (15)
g B Leff

rcore : Radius of the fibre core (~4x10-6m)

α : Fibre attenuation coefficient = 0.046 km-1 for 0.2 dB/km
gB : Brillouin gain coefficient (5x10-11m/W)

So for fibre described above Pth(SBS) ~ 1mW

Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

SBS

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Stimulated Raman Scattering (SRS)

• SRS moves light forwards. (Stokes wave travels in the

same direction as the signal.)
• Pump light produces optical phonons.
• Signal power is reduced.
• Power tends to be ‘robbed’ from short wavelength
channels.
• Cross talk at the generated Raman wavelength can cause
interference.
• Bandwidth is large.
• Used in amplifiers as discussed later in the course.

Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

SRS

16 Aeff
Pth (SRS ) ≈ (16)
g R Leff

rcore : Radius of the fibre core (~4x10-6m)

α : Fibre attenuation coefficient = 0.046 km-1 for 0.2 dB/km
gR : Raman gain coefficient (1x10-13m/W)

So for fibre described above Pth(SRS) ~ 400mW

Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

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SRS

http://www.fiber-optics.info/glossary-s.htm Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

Frequency bandwidth and stimulated

scattering

• SBS operates over a very narrow range of frequencies

∆fB~20MHz.
• Pth source (SBS)= Pth(SBS) X (1 + ∆fsource / ∆fB) (17)
• Increases threshold by a factor of ~10.
• Only affects a single channel.
• SRS occurs over a very wide bandwidth. ∆fR~10THz.
• Possible to couple together many channels through SRS.
• Leads to problems in WDM / DWDM systems at relatively
low powers in each channel.

Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

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Non-linear effects

• Remember when an electric field is applied to a medium:

D = εE = ε0E+P (18) P = ε0χe E (19)

Electric flux density Electric dipole moment

per unit volume Electric susceptibility
Permitivity

χe not dependent on E – linear regime

χe dependent on E – non-linear regime
Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

Linear refractive index

D = εE = ε0E+P = ε0E + ε0χe E

= ε0(1+χe) E (20)

Therefore since: ε = ε 0 εr (21)

εr = (1+χe) (22)

Refractive index: n = (εr)0.5 (23)

n=√ (1+χe) (24)

Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

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Non-linear refractive index

Need to look at the higher order terms for P.

P=ε0χeE + ε0χe(3)E3 (25)

χe(2) term disappears as glass is a centro-symmetric medium.

Substituting (25) into (19) leads to the following equation for the refractive index::

n = n0 + n*E2 (26)

n* = (3/8n0) χe(3) (27)

Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

Non-linear refractive index II

Can also write an expression for the refractive index:

Power
P
n = n0 + n 2 •
A eff Effective Area

Linear refractive index

Non-linear refractive index

For silica: n0 = 1.47

n2 = 2.35x10-20 m2/W

Small change, but fibre length can be long!

Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

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Self Phase Modulation

Take a wave: y = A cos (ωt-βz) (34)

β = ωn/c (35)

n is now non-linear and depends on the intensity of light:

β = β0+γPin (36)

Additional phase shift caused:

l l
Φ= ∫ (β − β0 )dz = ∫ γP(z)dz = γPinL eff
0 o
(38)

=(3ω/8cn)χe(3)E2Leff (39)

Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

Meaning of SPM

Pulse broadening
Unchirped Pulse without SPM. ƒ Φ dependent on Pin and E2.
ƒ Pin changes across a pulse.
ƒ E2 varies in the pulse
ƒ CHIRP placed on pulse.
ƒ Chromatic aberration then
broadens the pulse.

Chirped Pulse Pulse broadened due to SPM

Figure taken from ‘Fiber-Optic Communications Technology’ p.198

Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

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SPM and Soliton Transmission

• In some regimes pulse

compression takes place.
• Can use this to
compensate for dispersion
based pulse broadening.
• Such pulses are called
SOLITONS.
Pulses shortened here • Difficult to put into practice,
but a very active area of
research.
Figure taken from ‘Fiber-Optic Communications Technology’ p.199

Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

Other Non-Linear Effect

• Cross phase modulation.

– Intensity in one channel can effect index in another.
• Four-Wave Mixing
– Three waves combine together to form a fourth.

– ν4 = ν1 + ν2 - ν3 (40)

– If ν4 is coincident with another channel this leads to interference.

– Problem in zero-dispersion shifted fibres as strong phase matching
exists.
– Solutions include uneven channel spacings, moving the zero
dispersion point of the fibre and reducing the signal power.
– Presents the most limiting non-linear effect in WDM systems today.

Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

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Four Wave Mixing

λ1 = 1551.72nm
λ2 = 1552.52nm
λ3 = 1553.32nm

9 separate mixing
terms can be
calculated
http://www.fiber-optics.info/articles/nonlinearities.htm

Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

Four Wave Mixing and Dispersion

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Getting around non-linear effects

• 100mW in a 5µm diameter fibre – intensity = 5 x109W/m2

• Often don’t want to decrease power as receiver could be
affected.
• What about increasing mode area?
– 100mW in a 10µm diameter fibre = 1.3 x109Wm-2
– BUT what about the NA? Don’t want the fibre to go multimode.
– V=(πd/λ).NA – must reduce the NA to remain single mode!
• Large effective area (LEAF) fibre introduced for high bit rate
communications.

Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

Summary of Today’s Lecture

• Non-linear effects in fibres

• Stimulated scattering
– SBS
– SRS
• Non-linear refractive index and SPM
• Soliton transport
• Other non-linear effects – e.g. Four wave mixing.

Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

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Section 1 - Summary

• Basic physics of fibre optics.

– NA, modes, multimode and single mode fibre.
• Attenuation
– Bend losses, scattering, material absorption.
– Fibre optic transmission spectrum and transmission windows.
• Fibre fabrication
– Preform fabrication and drawing.
• Dispersion
– Chromatic and waveguide dispersion.
– Dispersion shifted, dispersion compensating fibre and FBG’s.
– PMD and it’s problems.
• Non-linear effects.
– SBS and SRS.
– SPM and FWM
Optical Fibres and Telecommunications - Introduction

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