The Handout of ELE432 Presentation

Topic: Fiber-Optic

Fu Luo

04/22/2008
1． Introduction
An optical fiber (or fibre) is a glass or plastic fiber designed to guide light along its
length. Fiber optics is the overlap of applied science and engineering concerned with
the design and application of optical fibers. Optical fibers are widely used in
fiber-optic communication, which permits transmission over longer distances and at
higher data rates than other forms of communications.

The fine glass fiber is relatively flexible and can be used to guide optical signals over
distances of kilometers without the necessity of perfect alignment between source and
detector. This significantly increases the applications of optical communication in
areas such as telephone and data transmission.

Compared with electrical cable, light propagates through the fiber with little
attenuation compared to electrical cables and the light signals propagating in the fiber
can be modulated at rates as high as 40 Gb/s. Additionally, fiber saves space in cable
ducts because a single fiber can carry much more data than a single electrical cable.
Fiber is also immune to electrical interference, which prevents cross-talk between
signals in different cables and pickup of environmental noise. Also, wiretapping is
more difficult compared to electrical connections. Moreover, fibers are non-electrical,
fiber cables can bridge very high electrical potential differences and can be used in
environments where explosive fumes are present, without danger of ignition.

Figure1.Fiber-Optic
2. History
In 1965, Charles K. Kao and George A. Hockham of the British company Standard
Telephones and Cables were the first to suggest that attenuation of contemporary
fibers was caused by impurities, which could be removed. They speculated that
optical fiber could be a practical medium for communication, if the attenuation could
be reduced below 20 dB per kilometer.[2]

In 1970, Robert D. Maurer, Donald Keck, Peter C. Schultz, and Frank Zimar
demonstrated a fiber with 17 dB optic attenuation per kilometer by doping silica glass
with titanium.

A few years later they produced a fiber with only 4 dB/km using germanium oxide as
the core dopant. Nowadays, attenuations in optical cables are far less than those in
electrical copper cables, leading to long-haul fiber connections with repeater distances
of 500–800 km.

The erbium-doped fiber amplifier, which reduced the cost of long-distance fiber
systems was co-developed by teams led by David Payne of the University of
Southampton, and Emmanuel Desurvire at Bell Laboratories in 1986.

The more robust optical fiber commonly using glass for both core and sheath was
invented by Gerhard Bernsee in 1973 by Schott Glass in Germany.

In 1991, the emerging field of photonic crystals led to the development of photonic
crystal fiber (Science (2003), vol 299, page 358), which guides light by means of
diffraction from a periodic structure, rather than total internal reflection. The first
photonic crystal fibers became commercially available in 1996.

3. Principle of Operation
An optical fiber is a cylindrical dielectric waveguide that transmits light along its axis,
by the process of total internal reflection. Light is kept in the "core" of the optical
fiber by total internal reflection. This causes the fiber to act as a waveguide.

The fiber consists of a core surrounded by a cladding layer. To confine the optical
signal in the core, the refractive index of the core must be greater than that of the
cladding. The boundary between the core and cladding may either be abrupt, in
step-index fiber, or gradual, in graded-index fiber.
 Figure 2. The propagation of light through a multi-mode optical fiber.

4. Types of Optical Fiber

4.1 Multi-Mode

Fiber with large (greater than 10 μm) core diameter may be analyzed by geometric
optics. Such fiber is called multimode fiber (MMF), and multimode fibers support
many propagation paths or transverse modes.

4.1.1 step-index multimode fiber

In a step-index multimode fiber, rays of light are guided along the fiber core by total
internal reflection. Rays that meet the core-cladding boundary at a high angle
(measured relative to a line normal to the boundary), greater than the critical angle for
this boundary, are completely reflected. The critical angle (minimum angle for total
internal reflection) is determined by the difference in index of refraction between the
core and cladding materials. Rays that meet the boundary at a low angle are refracted
from the core into the cladding, and do not convey light and hence information along
the fiber. The critical angle determines the acceptance angle of the fiber, often
reported as a numerical aperture. A high numerical aperture allows light to propagate
down the fiber in rays both close to the axis and at various angles, allowing efficient
coupling of light into the fiber. However, this high numerical aperture increases the
amount of dispersion as rays at different angles have different path lengths and
therefore take different times to traverse the fiber. A low numerical aperture may
therefore be desirable.
 Figure 3 step-index multimode fiber

4.1.2 graded-index fiber

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. The resulting curved paths reduce multi-path dispersion because high angle
rays pass more through the lower-index periphery of the core, rather than the
high-index center. The index profile is chosen to minimize the difference in axial
propagation speeds of the various rays in the fiber. This ideal index profile is very
close to a parabolic relationship between the index and the distance from the axis.

4.2 Single-Mode

As an optical waveguide, the fiber supports one or more confined transverse modes by
which light can propagate along the fiber. Fiber supporting only one mode is called
single-mode

The waveguide analysis shows that the light energy in the fiber is not completely
confined in the core. Instead, especially in single-mode fibers, a significant fraction of
the energy in the bound mode travels in the cladding as an evanescent wave.

The most common type of single-mode fiber has a core diameter of 8 to 10 μm and is
designed for use in the near infrared. The mode structure depends on the wavelength
of the light used, so that this fiber actually supports a small number of additional
modes at visible wavelengths. Multi-mode fiber, by comparison, is manufactured with
core diameters as small as 50 micrometres and as large as hundreds of micrometres.
 Figure 4 Optical fiber types

Figure 6. A typical single-mode optical fiber, showing diameters of the component layers.
4.3 Difference of Multi-Mode and Single-Mode

Both multi-mode and single-mode fibers are used in communications. Multimode

fibers generally have a large-diameter core, and are used for short-distance
communication links or for applications where high power must be transmitted.
Singlemode fibers are used for most communication links longer than 200 meters.
Because of the tighter tolerances required to couple light into and between
single-mode fibers (core diameter about 10 micrometers), single-mode transmitters,
receivers, amplifiers and other components are generally more expensive than
multi-mode components.

5. Losses in the fiber and choice of operating

wavelength
Losses in the fiber at a given wavelength can be described by an attenuation
coefficient a. The intensity of the signal at a distance x along the fiber is then related
to the starting intensity by the usual expression.

I(x)= I0 exp(-ax);

The attenuation is not the same for all wavelengths, however, and it is therefore

important to choose a signal wavelength carefully. A plot of a VS for a typical

silica glass fiber is shown in Figure 7. It is clear that dips in a near 1.3 and 1.55um
provide “windows” in the attenuation, which can be exploited to reduce the
degradation of signals. The overall decrease in attenuation with increasing wavelength
is due to the reduced scattering from small random inhomogeneities which result in
fluctuations of the refractive index on a scale comparable with the fourth power of
wavelength.

Another consideration in choice of operating wavelength is the pulse dispersion, or

spreading of data pulses as they propagate down the fiber.
 6
Attenuation(dB/km)

5
4
First window
3 Second
2 OH- Window
OH-
1 OH- Third
Window

0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4

15 1 6Wavelength(um)
λ

Figure 7 Wavelength VS Attenuation

The light source in a fiber-optic system today is laser, because the light is made up of
essentially a single frequency and allows a very large in formation bandwidth. In early
optoelectronic system, it was to use the GaAs-Al-GaAs system for making lasers and
LEDs. These light sources are highly efficient. However, these sources operate in the
wavelength range near 0.9 um, where the attenuation is greater than that for longer
wavelengths. Modern systems, therefore, operate near the 1.3-um 1.55-um minima.

6. Applications
¾ Optical fibers can be used as sensors to measure strain, temperature, pressure and
other parameters. Optical fiber sensors for temperature and pressure have been
developed for downhole measurement in oil wells. Another use of the optical
fiber as a sensor is the optical gyroscope which is in use in the Boeing 767 and in
some car models (for navigation purposes) and the use in Hydrogen microsensors
¾ Optical fibers are used as hydrophones for seismic or SONAR applications.
¾ Fibers are widely used in illumination applications.：
They are used as light guides in medical and other applications where bright light
needs to be shone on a target without a clear line-of-sight path. Optical fiber
illumination is also used for decorative applications, including signs, art, and
artificial Christmas trees.

¾ In some buildings, optical fibers are used to route sunlight from the roof to other
parts of the building.
Figure 8. A frisbee illuminated by fiber optics Figure 9. A fiber-optic Christmas Tree

¾ Optical fiber is also used in imaging optics.: A coherent bundle of fibers is used,
sometimes along with lenses, for a long, thin imaging device called an endoscope,
which is used to view objects through a small hole.
¾ Fiber-Optic Communication System

Figure 10. Fiber-Optic Communication System

7. Joining lengths of optical fiber

Joining lengths of optical fiber is more complex than joining electrical wire or cable.
The ends of the fibers must be carefully cleaved, and then spliced together either
mechanically or by fusing them together with an electric arc. Special connectors are
used to make removable connections. There are several kinds of connectors as shown
in Figure 11.
SC LC MT-RJ DSC VF-45 OPTI-jack

FC type SC type

SC2 type FDD type

BICONIC type D4 type

SMA 905 type SMA 906 type

MINI BNC Type

ST fiber connector on multimode fiber

Figure 11. Connectors