Module 4

Optical Fiber Structures

2.3.1: Optical fiber:
 is an dielectric waveguide that operates at optical
frequencies.
 The shape of the fiber is cylindrical.
 It confines EM energy in the form of light within it surfaces
and guides the light in the direction parallel to its axis.
 The propagation of light along the waveguide is described in
terms of a set of guided EM waves called modes of optical
fiber. The guided modes are called bound or trapped modes
of the waveguide.
 Guided mode is a pattern of E and H field lines ie repeated
along the fiber at intervals equal to wavelength.
 Structure of Optical waveguide/ Optical fiber

 It consists of single solid dielectric cylinder called as core of

the cylinder and it has radius ‘a’ and RI of n1.The core is
surrounded by a dielectric cladding having RI n 2 and n2>n1.
 The cladding reduces scattering loss resulting from dielectric
discontinuities at the core surface. It adds mechanical
strength to fiber. It protects the core from external
contaminations.
 The low and medium loss fibers use glass core surrounded
by plastic cladding. High loss fibers use plastic core
surrounded by plastic cladding.
 In addition to this, the fibers are also encapsulated by an
elastic, plastic material which provides additional mechanical
strength to it.
2.3.1Types of Optical fibers
Optical fibers

Step Indexed Graded Indexed

Single mode Multi –mode Single mode Multi -mode

Step Indexed fiber: RI of the core is uniform throughout and

undergoes abrupt change at cladding boundry.
Graded Indexed fiber: RI of the core is made to vary according to
radial distance from the center of the fiber.
Single mode fiber: It sustains only one mode of propagation.
Multi-mode fiber: It sustains hundred of modes.
Advantages of Multi-mode fibers.
 The large core radii makes it easier to launch optical power
into the fiber and facilitates the connecting together of
similar fibers.
 The light can be launched into the fiber using LEDs which
are of long life time, low cost, require less complex circuit.
Disadvantage of Single mode: Must be fed with LASER diodes
which are more expensive.
Disadvantage of Multi-mode: Suffer from intermodal dispersion.
Intermodal Dispersion: When an optical pulse is launched into
the fiber, the optical power in the pulse is distributed over all the
modes of the fiber. Each mode in multimode fiber propagates at a
slightly different velocity. This means that modes in a given optical
pulse arrive at the fiber end at slightly different times thus causing
the pulse to spread out in time as it travels along the fiber. This
effect is called intermodal dispersion.
This effect is reduced by graded index fiber and this makes graded
index fibers to have larger bandwidth.
2.3.2 Rays and Modes:
The EM light field in an optical fiber is represented by the
superposition of bound modes. Each of these modes consists of a
set of simple EM field configurations which form stating wave
pattern in transverse direction.
For monochromatic light fields of radian frequency ‘ω’, a mode
travelling in positive z direction has time and z dependence given
by

For guided modes the β can have discrete values.

Ray tracing/geometrical optics:
Is a method to study propagation characteristics of light in
optical fiber.
When the ratio of fiber radius to wavelength is large, this method
provides a good approximation to light acceptance and guiding
properties of optical fiber. This is known as small wavelength limit.
Ray approach is valid for zero wavelength limit and can be used
for multi-mode fibers.
The main advantage of ray approach is that, it gives more direct
physical interpretation of light propagation characteristics in an
optical fiber.
A guided mode travelling in z direction can be decomposed into a
set of superimposed plane waves that collectively form standing
wave pattern in the direction transverse to fiber axis. The set of
plane waves corresponding to a particular mode forms a set of rays
called ray congruence. Each ray in the set travels in the fiber at
the same angle relative to fiber axis.
The disadvantage of ray optics approach is that, when an optical
fiber is bent uniformly with constant radius of curvature, the ray
approach erroneously predicts that some ray congruence can
undergo total internal reflection at the curve and consequently
remain guided without loss.
2.3.3 Step Index Fiber structure:
In step indexed fiber, since the core RI n1 is larger than the RI n2
of surrounding cladding, the EM energy at optical frequencies is
made to propagate along the fiber waveguide through internal
reflection at core cladding interface.

Here the parameter Δ is called index difference. The value of n2 is

chosen such that Δ is nominally 0.01.
2.3.4 Ray optics representation:
The propagation mechanism of light in step indexed multimode
fiber is represented by a simple ray optics representation as
shown below.

The two types of rays that can propagate in fiber are meridional
rays and skew rays.
Meridional rays are confined to the meridian planes of the
fiber.(Meridian plane is the plain consisting of axis of core). Since
meridian rays lies in single plane its path is easy to track as it
travels along the fiber.
The meridian rays are further divided into two classes
i) Bound rays: that are trapped in the core and propagate
along the fiber axis.
ii) Unbounded rays: are refracted out of the core.
Skew rays are not confined to single plane and are tend to follow
helical path along the fiber.These rays are more difficult to track
since they are not propagating in a single plane.
Ray optics representation for meridional ray in step index fiber is
as below.
In the above fig a meridional ray enters the fiber core at an angle
θ0 with respect to fiber axis from a medium having RI ‘n’ .The ray
strikes core cladding interface at an normal angle Φ. The ray
strikes the interface with an angle such that it experiences total
internal reflection and ray follows zig zag path along the fiber
passing through the axis of the guide after each reflection.
From snells law, the min angle Φmin that supports total internal
reflection is given by

If the ray strikes the core cladding interface with an angle less than
Φmin, the ray is refracted out of the core and is lost in cladding.
Therefore

θc is called critical angle.

Numerical aperture (NA) for step index fiber for meridional rays
is given by

2.4 Mode theory for circular waveguides

Field distribution in planar dielectric slab waveguide is as shown
in fig below.
The planar dielectric slab waveguide consists of dielectric slab of
RI n1 sandwiched between dielectric material of RI n 2, (n2<n1) and
it represents optical waveguide.
The field patterns of several order modes is shown in above fig.
The order of mode is equal to the number of field zeros across the
guide. The order of the mode is also related to the angle the ray
makes with the plane of the waveguide ie steeper the angle, higher
the order of mode.
In above figs depicts that, the fields vary harmonically in the
guiding region of RI n1 and decay exponentially outside this region.
For lower order modes(TE0,TE1) the fields are concentrated at the
center of the slab with little penetration in the cladding region.
For higher order modes fields are distributed more towards the
edges of the guide and penetrate further in to the cladding region.
Maxwell’s eqs shows that, the optical fiber not only supports finite
number of guided modes, it also supports infinite quantum
radiation modes.
The radiation modes are the result of refracted optical power from
the core when the optical power is outside the acceptance angle of
the fiber. Because of infinite radius of cladding some of the
refracted optical power is trapped in the cladding there by causing
cladding modes(radiation modes).As the core and cladding modes
propagate along the fiber, coupling between the modes occurs.
This results in loss of power in from core modes.
Leaky modes are the additional modes present in the optical fibers.
These leaky modes are partially confined to the core region and
attenuate by continuously radiating their power out of core by
tunneling effect as they propagate along the core.
In optical fiber the mode remains the guided mode as along as the
following condition is satisfied.

2.4.1 Maxwell’s Equation for Circular step indexed Waveguide

To analyze optical waveguide (optical fiber), Maxwell’s eqs need to
be considered which gives relation between E and H fields.

-------------(1)

----------------(2)

-----------------(3)

---------------------(4)
Since D=εE and B=µH
Substituting for B in eq (1) and taking curl of it.

--------------(5)
Using vector identity

---------------(6)

Eq (3) can be written as

The eq (5) becomes
 --------------(7)
Similarly by taking curl of eq (2) it can be shown that,

-------------------(8)

2.4.2 Waveguide Equation:

Consider EM wave is propagating in cylindrical optical fiber as
shown in fig below.

Since the fiber is cyllinder, cylindrical coordinate system is

applied with axis of fiber along z axis.E and H fields of the wave
propagating in z axis is given by

-----------------(1)

----------------------(2)
Substitution of eq (1) and (2) in Maxwell’s eq results in

-----------------(3)

---------------(4)
 ---------------------(5)

----------------------(6)

------------------(7)

----------------(8)

When Ez=0, the modes are called transverse electric mode(TE).

When Hz=0the modes are called transverse magnetic mode(TM).
When Ez ≠ 0 and Hz ≠ 0 modes are called hybrid mode.
2.5 Single Mode fibers:
Single mode fibers are constructed by letting the dimensions of
the core diameter to be few wavelengths and by having a small
index difference between core and cladding.
2.5.1 Mode Field Diameter (MFD)
To determine the performance characteristics of single mode
fibers geometrical distribution of light in propagation mode is
very important.
Mode field diameter is the fundamental parameter of single mode
fiber.
This parameter is determined from mode field distribution of the
fundamental LP01 mode.
Mode field diameter(MFD) is analogous to core diameter in
multimode fibers as shown in fig below.

The E field distribution to be Gaussian and is given by

 -------------------(1)
Here ‘r’ is the radius, E0 is field at zero radius and W0 is the
width of electric field distribution .
The MFD width 2W0 of the LP01 mode is defined as

Here E(r) denotes field distribution of LP01 mode.

2.5.2 Propagation modes in Single mode Fibers
There are two propagation modes in single mode fiber such as
vertical polarized and horizontal polarized mode.
Either one of these polarization modes constitute fundamental
HE11 mode.
The electric field of the light propagating along the fiber is the
linear superposition of these two polarization modes.
The vertical and horizontal polarized modes in single mode fiber
are as shown below.

In ideal fibers two modes are degenerate with equal propagation

constant (Kx =Ky) and any polarization state injected into the fiber
will propagate unchanged.
But in case of practical fibers the two degenerative modes
propagate with different phase velocities due to the imperfections.
The difference between their effective refractive indices is called
fiber birefringence.

Where k0 is the free space propagation constant.

In practice when light is injected into the fiber, both the modes are
excited. Both the modes propagate with different phase velocities.
When the phase difference is integral multiple of 2π, the two modes
will beat at that point and input polarization state will be
reproduced. The length over which this beating occurs is the fiber
beat length.

2.7 Fiber materials:

While selecting the material for optical fiber following requirements
must be satisfied.
1) The material must be possible to make long, thin, flexible
fibers from the material.
2) The material must be transparent at a particular optical
wavelength in order for the fiber to guide light efficiently.
3) Physically compatible materials having slightly different RI
for core and cladding must be available.
The materials which satisfy these requirements are glass and
plastic.
2.7.1 Glass Fibers:
Glass is made by fusing mixtures of metal oxide, sulfides or
solenides.
The optical fibers are made up of combination of silica and oxide
glasses.
The most common material used is a silica which has RI of 1.45 at
859nm.
To obtain two similar materials with slightly different RI for core
and cladding the materials like florine, B2o3,Geo2 ,P2o5 are added to
silica.
Addition of Geo2 ,P2o5 with silica increases RI where as addition of
florine and B2o3 decreases RI.

2.7.2 Halide Glass Fibers:

These are made from fluoride glasses.
These fluoride glasses have extremely low transmission losses at
mid infrared wavelengths i.e 0.2 to 8µm.
The table below lists the constituents and their molecular % for a
particular floride glass called ZBLAN.

2.7.3 Active glass fibers:

Addition of rare earth elements to a passive glass material results
into a new material with new optical and magnetic properties.
These new properties allow the material to perform amplification,
attenuation, and phase retardation when light passes through
the fiber.
Erbium and neodymium are the most commonly used materials
for laser fibers.
2.7.4 Plastic clad Glass fibers:
These consists of silica core with lower RI polymer material for
cladding.
These are used for short distance applications.
Teflone FEP is the another popular plastic cladding material used
in fibers. The low RI, 1.38, of this material results in fibers with
large numerical aperture(NA).
Plastic cladding are most commonly used in step index fibers. The
large difference in core and cladding RI results in large NA. This
allows low cost, large optical source to be used to couple optical
power into these fibers.
2.7.5 Plastic fibers:
In these fibers a large optical signal attenuation occurs.
These are suitable for short and low cost links.
No special care is required to handle these due to toughness and
durability of plastic.
These fibers have high NA of 0.6 and angle of acceptance of 70
deg.
These will have large core of diameter ranging from 110 to
1400µm.
These are more economical compared to glass fibers.
3.1 Attenuation:
Attenuation of light signal as it propagates along the fiber is an
important factor in optical communication system.
The different types of attentions found in optical fiber are
1)Absorption : attenuation due to absorption results from
material
2) Scattering: is due to fiber material and structural
imperfections.
3) Radiative loss: due to perturbations in fiber geometry.
Attenuation units:
Signal attenuation or fiber loss is the ratio of optical output
power Pout from a fiber of length L to optical input power Pin.
Attenuation is a function of wavelength as shown below.

The unit for attenuation is dB.

3.1.2 Absorption:
Absorption in fiber occurs by following three mechanisms
1) Absorption by atomic defects in glass composition.
2) Intrinsic absorption by basic constituent atoms of optical
fiber.
3) Extrinsic absorption by impurity atoms in glass material.

Imperfections in atomic structure such as missing molecules,

high density clusters of atoms groups results in atomic defects in
fiber.
The absorption loss due to atomic defects are prominent when
fibers are exposed to nuclear radiations.
The presence of transition metal impurities such as iron cobalt
chromium copper in fiber material also results in absorption
loss.
Water(oH) ion concetration less than few parts per billion in fiber
material results in attenuation less than 20dB /km.
Higher OH concetration results in high absorption peaks at
1400,950 and 725nm.
The loss curve of silica fiber with OH content less than 0.8ppb is
as shown in below fig.
Intrinsic absorption is a physical factor that defines transparency
window of a material over a specified spectral region.
Intrinsic absorption results from electronic absorption band s in
UV region and from atomic vibration bands in near IR region.

Infrared absorption is given by:

3.1.3 Scattering losses: These losses occr due to variation in
composition and variation in molecular density in glass material.
Because of these there is a continuous variation in RI of glass
over the length of the fiber and it causes Rayleigh type scattering
of light.
The expression for scattering loss is given by

For multi component glass fibers scattering loss is given by

Scattering loss in graded indexed multi mode fiber is as shown

below.

Scattering loss in single mode fiber is as shown below.

3.1.4 Bending losses: Two types of bending losses are found in
fibers
1) Microscopic 2) Macroscopic

Macroscopic bends have radii that are large compared to fiber

diameter.
As the radius of curvature decreases the loss increases
exponentially as shown in fig below.

Microscopic bends of fiber axis that can arise when fibers are
incorporated into the cables.
The random microbends in optical fiber as shown in fig below will
also cause losses. The random microbends are caused either by
noninformalities in manufacturing of fibers or by nonuniform
pressures created during cabling of the fiber.
In microbending, the fiber curvature causes repetitive coupling of
energy between the guided modes and leaky modes and hence
loss occurs.
3.15 Core and Cladding loss:
The core and cladding have different attenuation coefficients α 1
and α2 due to variation in their RI.
This loss is given as

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