Optical Fiber Communication

TE- 56 C and D

Associate Prof Dr. Attiq Ahmad

NUST
Personnel Information
Name Associate Prof Dr. Attiq Ahmad
Bachelor MCS, Nust
Masters Technical University of Denmark (DTU)
PhD Nust
Area of Specialty Digital Signal /Image Processing

Published Papers 28 (14 x ISI indexed, 15xConference )

PhD students 4
UG Projects 2
EE-455 Optical Fiber Communication –Spring 2023
OBJECTIVE: To provide an understanding of the structure, operating principles and
underlying physical concepts of optical communication systems (particularly fiber links),
having emphasis on fundamental aspects, but taking care of engineering issues as well.

INSTRUCTOR: Dr Attiq Ahmad

E-mail: [email protected]
Office: 207, EE Dept
OFFICE HOURS: Monday – Friday: 09:00 AM – 11:00 AM
I encourage you to make appointments if these times conflict with your
schedule.
REFERENCE TEXT: As indicated in the slides
LECTURES: Monday and Tuseday

LABS: No
WEB Local Server Please check it periodically, as all the assigned homework,
together with the homework solutions, handouts, etc will be posted there.
GRADING: Assignments : 5% Due at the beginning of class on due date.
Quizzes : 15% Quizzes will be given at random dates.
Mid Sem Exam : 30% No make up tests.
Final Exam : 50% Comprehensive.

QUIZZES: Quizzes will be given at random dates throughout the semester. Most of them will be
pop quizzes.
HOMEWORK: Working in groups is encouraged. Groups up to 2-4 people may turn in ONE (1)
homework with the names of all group members. Homework will be due one week
after the assigned date. Assignments are to be done neatly , with all pages stapled
together. Late homework will be penalized with 20% of the grade for each day it is
late. Homework will NOT be collected after solutions have been made available.
TESTS: There will be two one hour examinations. There will be no make-up tests.

FINAL EXAM: Final examination will be held for 2 hrs. It will be a comprehensive exam, covering
entire course. No make up on ANY circumstance.
ACADEMIC DISHONESTY: Violations of academic dishonesty will be sanctioned. Violations of academic
integrity involve the use of any method or technique enabling a student to misrepresent the quality and
integrity of his or her own academic work or the work of a fellow student. Students committing academic
dishonesty will be reported to the appropriate college official and an F grade for this course will be recorded
on the student’s transcript. In cases where a student has an existing record of academic dishonesty, a more
severe penalty, e.g. involving suspension or dismissal from the college, may be sought.

TENTATIVE OUTLINE: Time as per assimilation of students will be given for each chapter !
Title: EE 456 - Optical Fiber Communication (3+0)
Credits Hrs: 3+ 0
Pre-requisite: PHY102 or PHY103

Text Books: 1. Fibre Optics Communication Systems by Govind P. Agrawal

2. Optical Fibre Communication, Principles and Practices by Jhon M.
Senior

Reference 1. Optical Fibre Communication by Gerd Keiser.

Books: 2. Optical Communication Systems by John Gowar
Topics of the Introduction. Brief introduction to optical communication, developments in optical
Course: communication, optical communication system components.
Optical Fiber. Basic principle, types, geometrical optic description, electromagnetic
wave theory and Maxwell’s equations, fiber modes, attenuation and scattering, non
linear optical effects, fiber manufacturing, slicing and connectors.
Optical Transmitter. Concept and principles, led structure and characteristics,
lasers, structure and characteristics, laser modes.
Optical Receivers. Concept, photo detector design and principles, receiver design
issues, noise and sensitivity.
Optical Amplifier. Concept, semi-conducteur laser amplifiers, amplifier
applications.
Optical Fibre System. Design issues, application and future development, multi
channel systems.
 Outline/Curriculum
 Introduction. Brief introduction to optical communication,
Development in optical communication, Optical communication’s
system components.Total internal reflection, Numerical
aperture(NA).
 Optical Fiber- Basic principle, Types of optical fiber, Geometrical-
optic description, Electromagnetic wave theory and Maxwell’s
equations, Fiber modes, Dispersion, Attenuation and scattering, Non
linear optical effects, Fiber manufacturing, Splicing and connectors.
 Optical Transmitter- Basic concept and principles, LED structure
and characterstics, Lasers, laser structure and characteristics, Laser
modes.
 Optical Receivers- Basic concept, photodetector design and
principles, Receiver design issues, Receiver noise and sensitivity.
 Optical amplifiers- Basic concept, semiconductor laser amplifiers,
fiber amplifiers, Amplifier’s applications,erbium doped fiber
amplifier(EDFA).
 Optical Fiber systems- Design issues, Applications and future
developments, Multichannel systems.
Objective

To provide an understanding of the structure,

operating principles and underlying physical
concepts of optical communication systems
(particularly fiber links), having emphasis on
fundamental aspects, but taking care of
engineering issues as well.
Books(Text Book/Reference Books)
 Fiber-Optic Communication Systems by Govind P. Agrawal

 Understanding optical communication by Harry Dutton.

 Optical communication (Willy series in telecommunication and signal

processing) by Robert M.Gagliardi, Sherman Karp.

 Optical Communication Systems by John Gawar

 Optical Fiber Communication, principles and practices (2nd edition)

by John M. Senior

 High speed optical communications by R Sabella and P Lugli

Optical Fiber Communication Link !
 Back Ground
 Light has a long history of being used to convey long distance messages.

 The first “optical telegraph” was put in service between Paris

and Lille (two French cities about 200 km apart) in July 1794.

 The role of light in such systems was simply to make the coded
signals visible , so that they could be interpreted by the relay
stations.

 The advent of telegraph in 1830 replaced the use of light by electricity

and began the use of electrical communication(Morse Code).

 The invention of telephone in 1876 brought a major change by introducing

Analog communication system, which remained under use for 100 years.
Back ground - Need for Optical Fiber
 The development of wolrd wide telephone networks during 20th
Century necessitated the use of coaxial cables instead of pairs
wires for increased capacity.

 A 3-MHz system capable of transmitting 300 voice channels

was put in to use in 1940.

 Than arises the frequency-dependent cable losses, which

increase rapidly for frequencies beyond 10 MHz. This limitation
led to the development of microwave communication systems
in which an electromagnetic carrier wave with frequencies in
the range of 1–10 GHz is used to transmit the signal by using
suitable modulation techniques.
 Cont.
 The first microwave system operating at the carrier frequency
of 4 GHz was put into service in 1948. Since then, both coaxial
and microwave systems have evolved considerably and are
able to operate at bit rates ~100 Mb/s.
 A severe drawback of such high-speed coaxial systems was
their small repeater spacing (~ 1 km), made the system
relatively expensive to operate.
 Microwave communication systems -allow larger repeater
spacing, but their bit rate is also limited by the carrier
frequency of such waves.
 Figure of merit for communication systems is the bit rate–
distance product, BL, where B is the bit rate and L is the
repeater spacing
BL Development
 Cont
 An increase of several orders of magnitude in the BL product
would be possible if optical waves were used as the carrier -- But
neither a coherent optical source nor a suitable transmission
medium was available during the 1950s.

 The invention of the laser and its demonstration in 1960 solved

the first problem.

 Attention was then focused on finding ways for using laser light
for optical communications.

 It was suggested in 1966 that optical fibers might be the best

choice, as they are capable of guiding the light in a manner
similar to the guiding of electrons in copper wires.
 Cont..
 The main problem was the high
losses of optical fibers—fibers
available during the 1960s had
losses in excess of 1000 dB/km.
 A breakthrough occurred in
1970 when fiber losses could be
reduced to below 20 dB/km in
the wavelength region near 1
µm.
 The reduction of loss made it
possible to use optical fibers for
communication. Which was Around 1975. The enormous progress
was realized !
further reduced to 0.2 db/km in
1979.
 Cont..
 At about the same time, GaAs
semiconductor lasers, operating at
room temperature, were demonstrated .
 The simultaneous availability of
compact optical sources and a low-loss
optical fibers led to a worldwide effort
for developing fiber-optic
communication systems.
 Figure shows the increase in the
capacity of lightwave systems realized
after 1980 through several generations
of development.
 The commercial deployment of
lightwave systems followed the
research and development phase
closely. The progress has indeed been
rapid as evident from an increase in the
bit rate by a factor of 100,000 over a
period of less than 25 years.
 Transmission distances have also
increased from 10 to 10,000 km over
the same time period. As a result, the
bit rate–distance product of modern
lightwave systems can exceed by a
factor of 107 compared with the first-
generation lightwave systems.
Optical Comm Systems
Optical Communication Systems
 Optical communication systems differ in principle from microwave
systems only in the frequency range of the carrier wave used to carry
the information
 An increase in the information capacity is expected simply because of
high carrier frequencies (~ 100 THz) .
 Optical communication system consists of a transmitter, a
communication channel and a receiver.
 Optical communication systems can be classified as guided and
unguided.
 In the guided lightwave systems the optical beam emitted by the
transmitter remains spatially confined, using optical fibers.
 In the unguided optical communication systems the optical beam
emitted by the transmitter spreads in space, similar to spreading of
microwaves.
 Unguided optical systems are less suitable for broadcasting
applications than microwave systems because optical beams spreads
mainly in the forward direction because of their short wavelength.
Five Generations of Light wave Systems

 First generation
◼ Operating near 800 nm and used GaAs semiconducor
laser, commercially available in 1980
◼ Operated at bit rate of 45 Mbps and repeater spacing of
about 10 km (larger compared that of coaxial cable)
 Second generation
◼ Operating near 1300 nm where fiber loss is 1 db/km
(typically 0.5 db/km) and fiber exhibit minimum
dispersion.
◼ Uses InGaAsP semiconductor lasers and detectors. (newly
developed) Indium gallium arsenide
◼ Available in early 80s
◼ By 1987 commercially available systems were operating at
bit rates of up to 1.7 Gbps and repeater spacing of about
50 km.
Cont..
 Third generation
◼ Fiber has minimum loss at
1550 nm (realized in 1979
but dispersion was
considerably large)
◼ Dispersion shifted fibers could
overcome the dispersion
problem, designed to have
minimum dispersion around
1550 nm.
◼ In 1990 commercially
available systems were
operating at 2.5 Gbps and
capable of operating at 10
Gbps. (DSF with single-
longitudinal-mode lasers)
◼ Typical repeaters spacing is
around 60-70 km
Cont..
 Fourth generation
◼ A drawback of third generation 1.55µm is that the signal is
regenerated periodically by using electronic repeater.
◼ The fourth generation makes use of optical amplifiers(1989) for
increasing the repeater spacing and WDM for increasing the bit
rate.
◼ It employs erbium-doped fiber amplifiers(1990) 60 – 100 km
apart.
◼ Several WDM systems were deployed across the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans during 1998–2001 in responseto the Internet-
induced increase in the data traffic; they have increased the total
capacity by orders of magnitudes.

 Fifth generation
◼ Concerned with finding the fiber dispersion problems
◼ Optical amplifiers have solved the loss problem but made the
dispersion problem worse
◼ Solution is based on the concept of optical solitons – optical
pulses that preserve their shape during propagation by
counteracting the effect of dispersion through the fiber
nonlinearity.
 Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing

DWDM System
 in medium is a measure for how much the velocity of light is reduced inside the medium.

Refractive index !!
 There is a widely held view that light always travels at the same speed.
This ‘fact’ is simply not true. The speed of light depends upon the
material through which it is moving. In free space light travels at its
maximum possible speed, close to 300 million meters or nearly eight
times round the world in a second.
 When it passes through a clear material, it slows down by an amount
dependent upon a property of the material called its refractive index.
 Speed of light in the material =speed of light in free space/refractive
index

lower refractive index

higher speed
 Snell’s law
Willebrord Snell, a Dutch astronomer,
discovered that there was a relationship
between the refractive indices of the
materials and the sine of the angles. He
made this discovery in the year 1621.

Snell’s law states the relationship as:

n1sin φ1 = n2sin φ2

Where: n1 and n2 are the refractive indices

of the two materials, and sin φ1 and sin φ2
are the angles of incidence and refraction
respectively.

Snell's law will apply to the refraction of

light in any situation, regardless of what the
two media are.
Critical angle – Light Guiding
As the angle of incidence in the first material is increased, there will come
a time when, eventually, the angle of refraction reaches 90° and the light
is refracted along the boundary between the two materials. The angle of
incidence which results in this effect is called the critical angle.We can
calculate the value of the critical angle by assuming the angle of
refraction to be 90° and transposing Snell’s law:

n1sin φ1 = n2sin90°

As the value of sin90° is 1, we can now transpose to find sin φ1, and hence φ1,
(which is now the critical angle):

n 
 = arcSin  2 
 n1 
Critical
A worked example
 Total internal reflection
 The critical angle is well-named as its value is
indeed critical to the operation of optic fibers.
 At angles of incidence less than the critical angle,
the ray is refracted.
 However, if the light approaches the boundary at
an angle greater than the critical angle, the light is
actually reflected from the boundary region back
into the first material. The boundary region simply
acts as a mirror. This effect is called total internal
reflection (TIR).
 The effect holds the solution to the puzzle of
trapping the light in the fiber. If the fiber has
parallel sides, and is surrounded by a material with
a lower refractive index, the light will be reflected
along it at a constant angle – shown as ø in the
Figure .

Any ray launched at an angle

Greater than the critical angle
will be propagated along the optic fiber
Electromagnetic spectrum
Numerical aperture
 The numerical aperture of a fiber is a figure which represents
its light gathering capability.
 The acceptance angle also determines how much light is able to
enter the fiber and so we must expect an easy relationship
between the numerical aperture and the cone of acceptance as
they are both essentially measurements of the same thing.
 The formula for the numerical aperture is based on the
refractive indices of the core and the cladding.

NA = ncore
2
− ncladding
2

Aceptance angle=sin-1 NA
 Example
Let’s try the short cut and see how it works out using values of ncore = 1.5, and
ncladding = 1.48.

What will happen if incident angle is more than cone of acceptance ?

the light will not be able to couple efficiently into the fiber, and it will be lost. This can result in reduced signal strength or data transmission rates,
which can affect the performance of optical communication systems.
 Geometrical- Optics description
In its simplest form an optical fiber
consists of a cylindrical core of silica
glass surrounded by a cladding whose
refractive index is lower than that of the
core.

Because of an abrupt index change at

the core–cladding interface, such fibers
are called step-index fibers. In a
different type of fiber, known as graded-
index fiber, the refractive index
decreases gradually inside the core.
Figure shows schematically the index
profile and the cross section for the two
kinds of fibers.

The geometrical-optics description, although approximate, is valid when the core

radius a is much larger than the light wavelength λ. When the two become
comparable, it is necessary to use the wave-propagation theory
 NA – Step index fiber
 Numerical Aperture is a measure of the light gathering power of the fiber.

 The acceptance angle for an optical fiber is maximum angle to the axis at which light
may enter the fiber in order to be propagated.

 It gives a relationship between the acceptance angle and the refractive indices of the
three media involved, namely the core, cladding and air.

 For this analysis we are concerned with meridional rays with in the fiber.

 light ray incident at an angle 1 to the fiber axis which is less than the acceptance
angle for the fiber a.

 The ray enters the fiber from a medium (air) of refractive index n0 , and the fiber core
has a refractive index n1 , which is slightly greater than the cladding refractive index n2.

 using Snell’s law

no sini = n1 sinr
  Considering the right-angled triangle indicated in figure then
 = /2 - r
 So from above Snell’s law equation
n0sini = n1cos

As  = /2 - r
r= /2 - 
sin r = sin (/2 - )
= sin /2 cos  - cos /2 sin 
= cos 

Using the trigonometric relationship

sin2 +cos2 =1
Eq. may be written in the form
n0 sini = n1(1-sin2 ) ½
When the limiting case for total internal reflection is considered,  becomes
equal to the critical angle for the core-cladding interface and sin c given by Eq.
sinc = n2 / n1
  Also in this limiting case 1 becomes the acceptance angle for the
fiber - a. Combining these limiting cases into above Eq

n0sini = n1(1-sin2 ) ½
gives
n0 sina = n1(1- n22 / n12) ½

n0 sina = (n12 - n22) ½

 Numerical aperture (NA) is defined as:

NA = n0sina = (n12 - n22) ½

 NA is often used with the fiber in air where n0 is unity, it is simply equal to sina
 Incident meridional rays over the range   i  a will be propagated within fiber.
 The numerical aperture may also be given in terms of the
relative refractive index difference  between the core and
cladding which is defined as:
 = (n12 - n22) / 2 n12
2 n12 = n12 - n22
2 n12 = (n1 - n2) (n1 + n2)
2 n12 = (n1 - n2) 2 n1 for n1  n2
n1  = (n1 - n2)
 = (n1 - n2) / n1
 = (n1 - n2) / n1 for  << 1 (~ 1% in fiber)
 should  be made as large as possible in order to
couple maximum light in to the fiber !!
NA – Step index fiber
 Combining Eqs. We can write
NA = n0sina = (n12 - n22) ½

As
(n12 - n22) ½ = [(n1 - n2) (n1 + n2)] ½
= [(n1 - n2) (n1 + n2)] ½
= [(n1 - n2) 2 n1] ½ for n1  n2
= [2 n1 (n1 - n2)] ½
= [2 n12 (n1 - n2)/ n1 ] ½
= n1[2 (n1 - n2)/ n1] ½
= n1[2 ] ½ for  = (n1 - n2) / n1

NA = n0sina = (2 n12) ½
NA= n1(2)½
Example.
A silica optical fiber with a core diameter large enough to be considered by ray
theory analysis has a core refractive index of 1.50 and a cladding refractive
index of 1.47.

Determine:
(a) The critical angle at the core-cladding interface.
(b) The NA for the fiber.
(c) The acceptance angle in air for the fiber.

Solution:
(a)The critical angle c at the core- cladding interface is given by Eq.

sinc = n2 / n1
c = sin-1n2 / n1
= sin-1 1.47/1.50
= 78.50
(b); From Eq. The numerical aperture is

NA = (n12 - n22) ½
= (1.502 – 1.472) ½
=(2.25 – 2.16) ½
=0.30

(c): Considering Eq the acceptance angle in the air a is given by:

a = sin-1 NA
= sin-1 0.30
=17.40
Intermodel dispersion (Multimode dispersion)
The extent of pulse broadening can be estimated by considering the longest and shortest ray paths.
The shortest path occurs for i = 0, and is just equal to the fiber lenght 'L'.The longest Φc
X
path occurs for i shown previously and has a lenght 'L/sin  c .
v = c / n1 , the time delay is given by ; velocity of propagation
T = TMax − TMin time delay

n1
L −L
s x−L n2 Ln n − n
= = = = 1 1 2 n1
v v c cn2 n1 L
n1
Ln12 
= When   1 X= L/SinΦc
cn2

under this condition  =

n1 − n2
may also be true SinΦc= n2/n1
n2
Ln12 Ln1 Ln1  n1  Ln1  n1 − n2 
T = − =  − 1 =  
cn2 c c  n2  c  n2 
Ln  Ln 2 2 L( NA)2
= 1 = 1 =  (NA) 2 = 2n12  
c 2n1c 2n1c
The time delay between the two rays taking the shortest and longest
paths is a measure of broadening experienced by an impulse launched
at the fiber input.

We can relate ∆T to the information-carrying capacity of the fiber

measured through the bit rate B. Although a precise relation between
B and ∆T depends on many details,

Requirement for minimal inter symbol interference:

B ∆t < 1
where
B = bit rate
Example
This condition provides a rough estimate of a fundamental limitation of
step-index fibers. As an illustration, consider an unclad glass fiber
with n1 = 1.5 and n2 = 1.

The bit rate–distance product of such a fiber is limited to quite small

values since BL<0.4 (Mb/s)-km.

Considerable improvement occurs for cladded fibers with a small

index step. Most fibers for communication applications are designed
with ∆ < 0.01.
As an example, BL < 100 (Mb/s)-km for ∆ = 2x10−3. Such fibers can
communicate data at a bit rate of 10 Mb/s over distances up to 10 km
and may be suitable for some local-area networks.
 Names given to different rays
 The position and the angle at which the ray
strikes the core will determine the exact path
taken by the ray. There are three possibilities,
called the skew, meridional and the axial ray as
shown in Figure . If light enters a fiber from a
practical light source, all three rays tend to
occur as well as those outside of the cone of
acceptance .
 The skew ray never passes through the center
of the core. Instead it reflects off the
core/cladding interface and bounces around the
outside of the core. It moves forward in a shape
reminiscent of a spiral staircase built from
straight sections.
 The meridional ray enters the core and
passes through its center. Thereafter, assuming
the surfaces of the core are parallel, it will
always be reflected to pass through the center.
 The axial ray is a particular ray that just
happens to travel straight through the center of
the core.
Graded index fibers
 The refractive index of the core in graded-index fibers is not constant
but decreases gradually from its maximum value n1 at the core center
to its minimum value n2 at the core–cladding interface. Most graded-
index fibers are designed to have a nearly quadratic decrease and are
analyzed by using α-profile, given by

where a is the core radius. ρ is the radial distance. The parameter α

determines the index profile. A step-index profile is approached in the
limit of large α. A parabolic-index fiber corresponds to α= 2.
 Cont…
 It is easy to understand qualitatively why intermodal or multipath dispersion is
reduced for graded-index fibers. Figure shows schematically paths for three
different rays. Similar to the case of step-index fibers, the path is longer for
more oblique rays.However, the ray velocity changes along the path because
of variations in the refractive index. More specifically, the ray propagating
along the fiber axis takes the shortest path but travels most slowly as the
index is largest along this path.
 Oblique rays have a large part of their path in a medium of lower refractive
index, where they travel faster. It is therefore possible for all rays to arrive
together at the fiber output by a suitable choice of the refractive-index profile it
leads to nondispersive pulse propagation within the paraxial approximation. The
trajectory of a paraxial ray is obtained by
where ρ is the radial distance of the ray from the axis. For ρ< a with α
= 2, Eq. above reduces to an equation of harmonic oscillator and has
the general solution;

where p = (2∆/a2)1/2 and ρ0 and ρ’0 are the position and the direction
of the input ray, respectively. Equation above shows that all rays
recover their initial positions and directions at distances z = 2mπ/p,
where m is an integer.

Such a complete restoration of the input implies that a parabolic-

index fiber does not exhibit intermodal dispersion.
Intermodal dispersion in graded-index fibers has been studied extensively
by using wave-propagation techniques. The quantity ∆T/L, where ∆T is the
maximum multipath delay in a fiber of length L, is found to vary
considerably with α. Figure shows this variation for n1 = 1.5 and ∆ =
0.01. The minimum dispersion occurs for α= 2(1−∆) and depends on ∆ as

The limiting bit rate–distance product

is obtained by using the criterion
∆T < 1/B and is given by
The BL product of such fibers is improved by nearly three orders of
magnitude over that of step-index fibers.

Indeed, the first generation of lightwave systems used graded-index

fibers. Further improvement is possible only by using single-mode fibers
whose core radius is comparable to the light wavelength.

Graded-index fibers are rarely used for long-haul links, such fibers have a
relatively large core, resulting in a high numerical aperture and high
coupling efficiency but they exhibit high losses .

The BL product of plastic fibers, however, exceeds 2 (Gb/s)-km - they can

be used to transmit data at bit rates >1 Gb/s over short distances of 1 km
or less.
 α- Profile
where ∆ is the relative refractive index difference and α is the profile
parameter, which gives the characteristic refractive index profile of the
fiber core. The figures below expressing the range of refractive index
profile of the fiber core as a variation of α, allows representation of the
step index fiber when α = ∞, a parabolic profile when α =2 and a
triangular profile when α =1.
??
Basic Concepts
Analog and Digital Signals
Channel Multiplexing
Modulation Formats
Light wave system components