Fiber Optics Communications

Department of Electrical Engineering

Sharif University of Technology
Khashayar Mehrany
mehrany@sharif.edu
What is Fiber Optic Communications?
• Communication systems employing
carrier frequencies of about 200
THz in the NIR of the
electromagnetic spectrum is
referred to as Optical
Communication Systems
• They are also called Lightwave
Systems in comparison against
Microwave Systems whose carrier
frequency is in the microwave
spectrum
What is Fiber Optic Communications?
• Optical Fiber (fiber optic cable) is a solid glass (sometimes plastic or
other materials) cylinder called a core which is surrounded by a
dielectric cladding.
What is Fiber Optic Communications?
• Fiber optic cable is wrongly compared against
electrical copper cables
• Fiber optic cables has multitude of
applications, namely in communications,
sensing, power transmission, imaging
(medical, entertainment)
• It could be:
• Single mode (2a = 9 mm)
• Multimode (2a = 50 mm)
• Special purpose (PM fiber, PC fiber, …)
Historical Perspective
• Optical methods for communication over long distances dates back to
antiquity
• ‫مناره‬-‫ چراغدان‬،‫میل سنگی‬
Historical Perspective
• Claude Chappe in 1972 used mechanical devices to implement optical
telegraph (1 b/s over ~100 km)
Historical Perspective
• The effective bit rate was less than 1 bit per second
• Electric telegraph replaced optical telegraph in the 1830s
• Invention of the Morse code led to 10 b/s communication over ~1000 km
• Invention of telephone in 1876
• Despite Bell’s belief photophone never worked
Analog electrical communication dominated communication systems
for about a century
• No significant advances till 1960s
• Laser invention gave the potential of high speed communications
Historical Perspective
• Use of coaxial cables (instead of two wire systems) led to further
improvement
• 1940, 3 MHz system
• 1948, 4 GHz microwave system ~100 Mb/s
Historical Perspective
• It was realized in 1950s that increase of BL produce would be possible
via optical communications which was in need of
• Coherent optical source
• Suitable transmission medium
• No significant advances in optical communications till 1960s
• Laser invention gave the potential of high speed communications from the
source point of view
• Experiments using laser for atmospheric optical channels failed
• Optical fibers had extremely large loss ~1000 dB/km
• Kao (Nobel laureate of 2009) and Hockman attributed this to fiber impurities
Historical Perspective
• Two milestones at 1970s
• Low loss optical fibers (~20 dB/km around wavelength of 1 mm)
• Invention of semiconductor laser
• Era of lightwave technology arrived at 1980s
• 1st generation operated at 45 Mb/s over ~10 km
• It was increased to 10 Gb/s over ~80 km by 1990
• 1 Tb/s over a distance of 10000 km by 2001
Increase of bit rate by a factor of one million
Increase of transmission distance by a factor of 1000 (10 km to 10,000 km)
BL increased by one billion in about 4 decades
Historical Perspective
• The enormous increase in the capacity of lightwave systems realized
through several generations of development
Historical Perspective
• 1st generation: GaAs lasers at 0.85 mm, (research: 1977-79,
commercial: 1980), 45 Mb/s over 10 km (it was 1 km over copper)
• It was known at 1975 that fiber’s loss is below 1 dB/km at 1.3 mm, at
which dispersion is also minimal
• Much effort was directed toward development of InGaAsP lasers and
detectors
• 2nd generation became available at early 1980s
• It was limited to 100 Mb/s because of multi-mode fibers
• Laboratory experiment with single-mode fiber: 2 Gb/s over 44 km
• Commercial phase: 1.7 Gb/s over 50 km by 1987
Historical Perspective
• Second generation was limited by loss (by then 0.5 dB/km).
• It was known that fiber’s loss is minimum at 1.55 mm but there was a
rather large dispersion at that wavelength
• 3rd generation had two solutions to attack the problem:
• Laser spectrum was limited to a single longitudinal mode
• Dispersion shifted fibers were introduced to have minimum dispersion at 1.55
mm
• By 1990 3rd generation fibers operating at a bitrate of up to 10 Gb/s
were available. Electronic repeaters apart by 60-80 km were however
necessary.
Historical Perspective
• 4th generation made use of optical amplification and wavelength
division multiplexing. The former increased the repeater spacing and
the latter increased the bit rate.
• The advent of 4th generation lightwave systems resulted in doubling
the system capacity every six months starting from 1992 to 2001.
• Fiber losses were compensated by Er doped fiber amplifiers. Amplifier based
all optical systems enabled submarine intercontinental communication. 5
Gb/s data transmission over 11000 km was realized by 1996.
• The advent of WDM increased the bit rate up to 10 Tb/s.
Historical Perspective
• The emphasis at the
dawn of 21st century
was on increasing
number of channels in
WDM systems. New
amplification schemes
were needed to cover
the whole bandwidth
Historical Perspective
• 5th generation made use of advance modulation formats which
increased spectral efficiency from 1 bit/s/Hz to 10 bit/s/Hz. The
conventional window of WDM (C-band: 1.53– 1.57 mm) was extended
to cover L and S bands (long and short wavelengths). Dry fibers were
introduced to ensure that loss is tolerable from 1.25-1.65 mm.
• 64 Tb/s transmission was realized over 320 km using 640 WDM
channels spanning both the C and L bands (with spacing as low as
12.5 GHz). Each channel used two polarizations with quadrature
amplitude modulation
Historical Perspective
• 6th generation fibers further increased capacity by using space
division multiplexing (SDM).
• It also encompasses multi-mode fibers at which is usually referred to
as the mode division multiplexing.
• By 2015, the total capacity of multi-core systems exceeded 1000 Tb/s
over distances exceeding 1000 km!
References
Fiber Optics Communications
Department of Electrical Engineering
Sharif University of Technology
Khashayar Mehrany
mehrany@sharif.edu
Outline
• Basic Concepts
• Optical Communication Systems
• Lightwave System Components
Outline
• Basic concepts:
• Analog and Digital signals
• Channel Multiplexing
• Modulation Formats
• Optical Communication Systems
• Lightwave System Components
Analog and Digital Signals
• The SNR of the electrical signal at the receiver should exceed 30 dB
for analog signals while it suffices to be 10 dB even lower for digital
signals. The price is the higher bandwidth needed for digital signals.
Analog and Digital Signals
• Sampling, Quantization, and Coding:
• Sampling frequency (fs) should meet the
Nyquist criterion to fully represent an
analog signal of limited bandwidth (Df):
fs>=2Df
• Sampled values is discretized at M
levels bigger than the dynamic range:
M>Amax/AN, where AN is the RMS noise
amplitude and SNR = 20log(Amax/AN)
• PCM is employed to convert the
discrete values to digital format
• The number of bits needed to code
each sample is m = log2M
Analog and Digital Signals
• The bit rate associated with PCM digital signal is: B = mfs>= 2Df log2M
• Since log210 is about 3.33 and log10M > SNR/20, the bit rate can be
written in terms of SNR in dB units: B > Df SNR/ 3
• For SNR > 30 dB, the required bit rate should exceed 10 Df. The
significant increase in the bandwidth is tolerated in optical
communications where bandwidth is abundant.
Analog and Digital Signals
• Analog audio signal bandwidth is in the range of 0.3-3.4 kHz- with a
bandwidth of 3.1 kHz- and has a SNR of about 30 dB; therefore, the
operating bit rate should exceed B > 31 kb/s. In practice, digital audio
signals operate at 64 kb/s, sampled at intervals of 125 ms (8 kHz),
represented by 8 bits.
• Analog television signal has a bandwidth of about 4 MHz, with a SNR
of about 50 dB. The minimum bit rate is B > 66 Mb/s. In practice,
digital video signal has a bit rate of 100 Mb/s, and is compressed by
standard formats like MPEG-4
Outline
• Basic concepts:
• Analog and Digital signals
• Channel Multiplexing
• Modulation Formats
• Optical Communication Systems
• Lightwave System Components
Channel Multiplexing
• Bits associated with different channels are interleaved in the time
domain to form a composite bit stream. The bit slot of a single voice
channel is about 15 ms (64 kb/s). Five such channels form a bit stream
of about 3 ms (320 kb/s)
Channel Multiplexing
• Different hierarchies have been used to form TDM bit streams:
• DS-1 made of 24 voice channels with 1.544 Mb/s in US and Japan, 30 voice
channels with 2.048 Mb/s
• DS-2 made of 4 DS-1 TDM channels
• The procedure continued to form DS-5
• In 1980s synchronous optical network (SONET) and later synchronous digital
hierarchy (SDH) was formed

since 1996 (10 GHz)

since 2002 (40 GHz)
Channel Multiplexing
• The following table summarizes the operating characteristics of
commercial terrestrial systems developed since 1980. The SDH
provides the international standard
Channel Multiplexing
• Channels can be separated by frequency (referred to as the
wavelength in the optical domain)
• Optical Transport Hierarchy (OTH) was introduced by ITU in 2003. It is
made of Optical Transfer Unit (OTU).
• OTU-1, OTU-2, and OTU-3 correspond to STM-16, STM-64, and STM-256.
• OUT-4 (operating at 100 Gb/s) was developed in 2005.
Channel Multiplexing
• Schematic of a WDM lightwave system:
Channel Multiplexing
• WDM can be either coarse or dense (which is a rather complex
structure)
• There is a channel spacing to minimize channel crosstalk. Typically
channel spacing Dnch exceeds 2B (B is the bit rate).
• Spectral efficiency is defined as: hs = B/Dnch.
• First WDM channles standardized by ITU were on a 100 GHz grid in
the frequency range of 186 THz to 196 THz (covering the C and L
bands in the wavelength range of 1530 nm to 1612 nm). hs for this
system is 0.1 bit/s/Hz at 10 GHz bit rate. It has been increased to 10
bit/s/Hz in fifth generation.
Channel Multiplexing
• The following table summarizes the characteristics of transatlantic
submarine cable. By 2001, several WDM systems laid across the
Atlantic had a combined capacity of 10 Tb/s. The increase in the
number of channels lowered the price of US-EU talk to less than 5
cents per minute (improvement by factor of 50 in terms of adjusted
1988 dollars).
Channel Multiplexing
• The use of TDM shortens the pulse duration and incur detrimental
dispersive and nonlinear effects
• The use of WDM solve the abovementioned issue at the expense of
bandwidth
• Spread spectrum technique (well known in wireless communication)
overcome some of these issues by spreading the spectrum over a
wider bandwidth. Although it may seem counterintuitive, it works
because it shares the bandwidth among all users. It is referred to as
the Code Division Multiplexing (CDM)
Channel Multiplexing
• It is the channel bandwidth and the time slots that are shared among
the users in WDM and TDM respectively.
• Both can be shared randomly among the users via CDM. This is
carried out by using a signature sequence formed by M chips. The
signal spectrum becomes broader by a factor of M. The orthogonal
nature of codes; however, ensure accurate demultiplexing at the
receiver end.
Outline
• Basic concepts:
• Analog and Digital signals
• Channel Multiplexing
• Modulation Formats
• Optical Communication Systems
• Lightwave System Components
Modulation Formats
• Given the maturity of EE, the
first step in optical
communication is to convert
electrical bit streams to optical
signals, which as we later see
is either direct or indirect.
• Modulation format; however,
can be either return-to-zero
RZ or nonreturn-to-zero NRZ.
Modulation Formats
• Bandwidth of NRZ signals is about half of the RZ
signals (on-off transitions occur fewer times). It
incurs bit pattern dependence though.
• RZ signals are now used almost exclusively
(since late 1999). By using chirped RZ (CRZ)
pulses one might spread the pulse as it
propagates down the fiber and thereby reduce
detrimental nonlinear effects
Modulation Formats
• In the case of analog modulation
we have AM, FM, and PM. Their
counterparts in the digital case are
amplitude shift keying (ASK),
frequency shift keying (FSK) and
phase shift keying (PSK)
• Until recently, on-off keying (OOC)
was the format of choice for most
digital lightwave systems
Modulation Formats
• In 2000s it was realized that PSK improves spectral efficiency in WDM
systems
• By 2010 most WDM systems employ signal formats modulating both
the amplitude and phase of the optical carrier
• Quadrature PSK takes four possible values and transmit two bits
during each symbol (the effective bit rate-baud rate- is halved)
Modulation Formats
• Bear in mind that conventional optical detectors are square law
detectors. Therefore, ASK modulation scheme is referred to as the
intensity modulation with direct detection (IM/DD). The phase of the
optical signal plays no role. LED can be used
• PSK and other coherent modulation schemes attracted much
attention since 2002. Coherent detection in such systems are needed
at the receiver end where a laser is needed to act as local oscillator
• Self-coherent systems are available whereby the received signal is
optically processed to transfer phase information into intensity
information to be processed by DD.
Fiber Optics Communications
Department of Electrical Engineering
Sharif University of Technology
Khashayar Mehrany
mehrany@sharif.edu
Outline
• Basic Concepts
• Optical Communication Systems
• Lightwave System Components
Optical Communication Systems
• Generic optical communication systems

• Communication channel can be guided or unguided

• Unguided optical channel is less suitable than microwave on account of
atmospheric loss and point-to-point transfer necessity
• Free space communications above the atmosphere (intersatellite
communications) is an exception
Optical Communication Systems
• Generic optical communication systems

• Communication channel can be guided or unguided

• All guided channel optical communication systems are now carrier out via
optical fiber.
• Short haul covers intracity and local traffic (~50 km)
• Long haul [which benefits the most] covers intercity and larger distances (>100 km)
Optical Communication Systems
• The carrier frequency in optical fiber communication (guided optical
channel suitable for short and long haul telecommunication) is about
200 THz. It is 228.85 THz at 1310 nm and 193.41 THz at 1550 nm.
• The bandwidth of the modulated carrier can be up to a few percent of
the carrier frequency, which gives the potential of having a bit rate
about 1 Tb/s.
• State of the art is 10 Gb/s
There is [hard to fathom] room for improvement
Optical Communication Systems
• Information rates demanded for typical telecom services are
summarized below. Network providers combine signals from different
users to send these services from one user to another. This is carried
out by signal multiplexing
Optical Communication Systems
• Spectral band designations:
• Long distance telecommunication is carrier out between 126-1675 nm, where
fiber has tolerable loss
Optical Communication Systems
• Spectral band designations:
• T-band proposed by NICT is proposed to address the need for moreate link
applications within data centers (support of 5G and IoT)
• There is a short wavelength band at 770-to-990 nm suitable for multimode
fibers
Optical Communication Systems
• Four key elements in optical
communication systems are: the light
sources, optical fiber, optical
amplifiers and photodetectors.
• Loss factors: hydroxyl ions (OH-) and
metallic impurities
• Water molecules at E-band are the
reason behind absorption between the
second and third window (around 1400
nm)
• Raman amplifiers have about 10 THz
bandwidth
Outline
• Basic concepts:
• Optical Communication Systems
• Lightwave System Components
• Fiber optic communication channel
• Optical Transmitter
• Optical Receiver
Fiber Optic Communication Channel
• Loss issue:
• Silica fiber transmits light with losses as small as 0.2 dB/km, i.e. it reduces to
1% over 100 km.
• Optical amplifier spacing is determined by loss and is necessary for long haul
telecommunication
Fiber Optic Communication Channel
• Dispersion issue:
• Pulse broadening caused by fiber dispersion is another important issue and is
most severe for multimode fibers (~10 ns/km)
• Material dispersion in SMF could be as low as 0.1 ns/km. It still sets the
ultimate limit
• Nonlinear issue:
• Nonlinear effects are accumulated over long distances larger than ~300 km. It
was unnecessary to study when optical signals were electronically generated
every 300 km or so.
• Major nonlinear effects are SPM and XPM, which depend on the power level,
bit rate and modulation format
Outline
• Basic concepts:
• Optical Communication Systems
• Lightwave System Components
• Fiber optic communication channel
• Optical Transmitter
• Optical Receiver
Optical Transmitter
• It is made of optical source (laser or LED), modulator (mostly external
but sometimes internal by current injection) and channel coupler for
in-coupling of light into fiber optic cable (usually microlens)
Optical Transmitter
• The launched power and modulation format (pulse shape) are
important issues.
• Increasing launched power increases the amplifier (repeater) spacing
but deteriorates the nonlinear effects.
• The launched power is <-10 dBm (100 mW) for LED but is usually ~10
dBm (10 mW) for laser diodes.
• The bit rate is limited by the electronics and cannot exceed about 40
Gb/s
Outline
• Basic concepts:
• Optical Communication Systems
• Lightwave System Components
• Fiber optic communication channel
• Optical Transmitter
• Optical Receiver
Optical Receiver
• It is made of a coupler, photodetector (usually semiconductor), and
demodulator
• The coupler focuses the received optical signal onto the
photodetector
• The demodulator depends on the modulation format. The simplest
scheme is IM/DD.
Optical Receiver
• Average probability of incorrect bit identification is referred to as the
BER, which is bit rate dependent. The operating requirement is 10-9
and corresponds to average one error per billion bits
• Receiver sensitivity is the minimum average optical power required to
realize a specified BER (usually 10-9 but sometime as low as 10-14)
• The fundamental limit comes from the shot noise commonly referred to as
the quantum noise limit
• Other noise factors are: thermal noise, amplification noise, ISI, …
Fiber Optics Communications
Department of Electrical Engineering
Sharif University of Technology
Khashayar Mehrany
mehrany@sharif.edu
Outline
• Optical Fibers
• Optical Fiber and Cabled Fiber
• Geometrical Approach
• Electromagnetic Approach
• Dispersion
• Dispersion Induced Limitations
• Nonlinear Effects
• Design and Fabrication
• Complementary Notes
Optical Fiber and Cabled Fiber
• Cabled Fiber is an assembly similar to electrical cable, which contains
one or usually more optical fibers to carry light.
• Each optical fiber is individually coated and contained in a protective
tube suitable for the environment where the cable is installed.
• A variety of fiber types having different performance characteristics
exist.
• There are also different cable configurations depending on the
environment where the cable is to be installed.
Optical Fiber and Cabled Fiber
• Optical fiber cables should have the following features:
• Capable of resisting crush and tensile stress
• Be installable with the same equipment, installation techniques, and
precautions which are common for conventional wire cables
• Unlike copper cables for which the copper wire is generally the
principal load-bearing member of the cable, strength members are
needed for optical fiber cables.
Optical Fiber and Cabled Fiber
• A generic six fiber cable is
depicted below. There is color
coding standard for the jacket
color of each fiber.
• There are different types of
cables:
• Indoor
• Outdoor
• Aerial, underwater, armored, etc
Optical Fiber and Cabled Fiber
• We focus on optical fibers hereafter:
• Glass fibers were made in 1920s but became practical in 1950s.
• They were used for medical imaging before 1970’s.
• Loss was drastically decreased since 1970s (from 1000 dB/km to below 20
dB/km and later 0.2 dB/km by 1979)
• Dispersion and Nonlinear Issues have been addressed accordingly in different
generations of optical fiber communication systems.
Outline
• Optical Fibers
• Optical Fiber and Cabled Fiber
• Geometrical Approach
• Electromagnetic Approach
• Dispersion
• Dispersion Induced Limitations
• Nonlinear Effects
• Design and Fabrication
• Complementary Notes
Geometrical Approach
• Geometrical approach is valid when the core radius is much larger
than the wavelength (a is about 10 mm, and b is about 62.5 mm)
Geometrical Approach
• Step Index Fiber
• Numerical Aperture (NA)
for low contrast
(practical fiber) is n0sinqi:

• There is a multipath
(intermodal) dispersion:
Geometrical Approach
• Bit rate in a step index fiber B is limited by multipath dispersion
because DT should be less than the bit slot TB = 1/B:

• In practical fibers D is less than 0.01. For D = 2x10-3 the bit rate can
reach 10 Mb/s over 10 km and is suitable for LAN.
• Decreasing D on the other hand decreases NA and restricts light
coupling into fiber.
Geometrical Approach
• Graded Index Fiber
• Most GRIN fibers have a
nearly quadratic
decrease in refractive
index

• Increasing a makes the

profile step index like
Geometrical Approach
• Graded Index Fiber
• The trajectory of rays
can be obtained by
solving the ray equation
under paraxial
approximation:

• It becomes harmonic
oscillation for a = 2:
Geometrical Approach
• Intermodal dispersion is reduced for GRIN fibers since more oblique
rays which travels along longer paths do so in a medium of lower
refractive index and thereby travel faster while the ray traveling along
the axis of the fiber despite taking the shortest path travels slowest as
the refractive index is largest along this path.
• Once again DT is the maximum multipath delay difference in a fiber of
length L and can be used to define intermodal dispersion DT /L. The
minimum dispersion occurs at a = 2(1-D) and depends on D
Geometrical Approach
• Intermodal dispersion DT /L for n1 = 1.5 and D = 0.01:
Geometrical Approach
• GRIN fibers with a suitably optimized refractive index profile can
reach bit rates as high as 100 Mb/s over distances of up to 100 km.
• Use of GRIN plastic fibers which has a rather high loss (>20 dB/km)
can support bit rates as high as 10 Gb/s over short distances (<1 km)
which is viable for data-link applications.
Outline
• Optical Fibers
• Optical Fiber and Cabled Fiber
• Geometrical Approach
• Electromagnetic Approach
• Dispersion
• Dispersion Induced Limitations
• Nonlinear Effects
• Design and Fabrication
• Complementary Notes
Electromagnetic Approach
• Wave Equation:
Electromagnetic Approach
• Helmholtz Equation obtained by applying Fourier transform and
written in terms of the refractive index n, and the absorption
coefficient a:
Electromagnetic Approach
• Further simplifications:
• Permittivity can be assumed real and replaced by n2 since loss is negligible
• Refractive index can be assumed independent of the spatial coordinates and
thus homogeneous in both the core and the cladding of a step index fiber and
thereby neglect the divergence of the electric field. It holds for GRIN fibers as
long as the index changes occur over a length scale much larger than the
wavelength:
Fiber Optics Communications
Department of Electrical Engineering
Sharif University of Technology
Khashayar Mehrany
mehrany@sharif.edu
Outline
• Optical Fibers
• Optical Fiber and Cabled Fiber
• Geometrical Approach
• Electromagnetic Approach
• Dispersion
• Dispersion Induced Limitations
• Nonlinear Effects
• Design and Fabrication
• Complementary Notes
Electromagnetic Approach
• Fiber Modes:
• Optical Modes are solutions of the wave equation which satisfy all
appropriate boundary conditions
• Mathematically speaking, they form the null space of the Maxwell’s operator
• Green’s function can be written in terms of optical modes and optical modes
can be extracted from the Green’s function
• Different boundary conditions can be applied at infinity which result in:
• Guided modes
• Leaky modes
• Radiation modes
• We are interested in guided modes only
Electromagnetic Approach
• To take advantage of the cylindrical symmetry the wave equation is written
in the cylindrical coordinates:

• What happens at the core/cladding interface?

• Similar equation is held for the longitudinal magnetic field, Hz.
• It is customary to write transverse electromagnetic fields in terms of the
longitudinal electromagnetic fields, i.e. Ez and Hz.
Electromagnetic Approach
• Method of separation of variables is employed:

• Substitution of which results in the following set of ordinary

equations:
Electromagnetic Approach
• Solution of the aforementioned set of ordinary equations is as
follows:
Electromagnetic Approach
• A few words about the mathematical form of the solution
• Reciprocity and having an even function in terms of the propagation constant
along z
• Uniformity along z and having a constant linear momentum
• Continuous rotational (azimuthal) symmetry and having an integer m
• What are the boundary conditions
• Along z?
• Along f?
• At the core/cladding interface?
• Do we have any along the z axis and when the radial distance tends toward infinity?
Electromagnetic Approach
• Further simplifications can be made by applying the boundary
condition along the z axis and when the radial distance tends toward
infinity:

• The longitudinal magnetic field can then be written as:

Electromagnetic Approach
• The transverse electromagnetic fields can be written as:
Electromagnetic Approach
• Applying the continuity condition of transverse electromagnetic fields
at the core/cladding interface yields the following equation:

where V is the normalized frequency:

• The abovementioned transcendental equation is referred to as the
dispersion equation.
Electromagnetic Approach
• Dispersion equation can be (numerically) solved to determine the
propagation constant b and has countably infinite roots, which
depend on the parameters n1, n2, a, k0 and on the azimuthal index m.
The nth root of the dispersion equation is written as bmn and is
referred to as the propagation constant of the mnth mode.
• Once bmn is found, the unknown constant coefficients in the
electromagnetic field distribution is obtained and we have the mnth
mode distribution.
Electromagnetic Approach
• There are pure TE and TM modes for m = 0
• Nonzero azimuthal index creates hybrid modes HE and EH depending
on whether Hz or Ez is dominant, respectively.
• The dominancy of Hz over Ez or vice versa depends on the ratio of the
unknown coefficients in the electromagnetic field distribution and is
obtained once is bmn found.
• It is possible to define normalized parameters and use them instead
of frequency, core radius, and refractive indices of core and cladding.
Electromagnetic Approach
• Normalized frequency is:

• Profile height parameter is:

• Mode index or the effective refractive index is:

• Normalized propagation constant is:

Electromagnetic Approach
• Normalized propagation constant can now be plotted versus
normalized frequency:

• No cut-off for HE11

• TE01/TM01 have same cut off
Electromagnetic Approach
• The guided mode decays exponentially within the cladding layer:

• Guided modes are supported if k0n2 <bmn< k0n1. The mode ceases to
be guided when bmn reaches the lower limit and falls below the cut
off. Therefore, the the effective refractive index (mode index), which
is expected to lie between n1 and n2.
• What does happen below n1 and above n2?
Electromagnetic Approach
• The fundamental mode ceases to exist only when the radius tends
toward zero. This is the principle by which single mode fibers operate,
i.e. by ensuring that the normalized frequency V is less than 2.405.
• In most practical cases, the index contrast is small and the profile
height parameter is much less than unity. In such a case certain group
of modes have almost identical propagation constants and become
approximately degenerate. Their combination form LP modes, which
in fact are scalar approximation of hybrid modes.
Electromagnetic Approach
• Scalar/Vector solutions:
Electromagnetic Approach
• Each LP0m mode is constructed
by two degenerate HE1m
modes
• Each LP1m mode is derived
from a combination of TE0m,
TM0m , and HE2m modes.
• Each LPnm mode (n>1) comes
from HE(n+1)m , and EH (n-1)m
modes.
Electromagnetic Approach
• Important Observations:
• Numerical aperture is related to V: NA = V/k0a
• A rough estimate for number of modes in multimode fibers having a rather
large V is M = V2 / 2.
• Electromagnetic field is not zero at the core/cladding interface. Larger mode
index is further away from cut-off and thus is more confined. Higher order
modes are closer to cut-off and are less confined.
• It is possible to define modal field effective area and effective radius.
Fiber Optics Communications
Department of Electrical Engineering
Sharif University of Technology
Khashayar Mehrany
mehrany@sharif.edu
Outline
• Optical Fibers
• Optical Fiber and Cabled Fiber
• Geometrical Approach
• Electromagnetic Approach
• Dispersion
• Dispersion Induced Limitations
• Nonlinear Effects
• Design and Fabrication
• Complementary Notes
Electromagnetic Approach
• Single Mode Fibers:
• Single Mode Fibers
support the
fundamental mode HE11
only.
• To ensure single mode
operation the TE01 and
TM01 should remain
below the cutoff. This
happens when q = 0 at
which pa becomes V.
Electromagnetic Approach
• Single Mode Fibers:
• Dispersion equation
yields:

• Given that pa = V at cut-

off, the smallest value
for V is obtained by
solving J0(V) = 0, i.e. V =
2.405
Electromagnetic Approach
• Single Mode Fibers:
• Single mode operation necessitates V<2.405.
• V is increased by:
• Decreasing the wavelength at free space
• Increasing the core radius
• Increasing the contrast, the profile height parameter D.
• In most telecommunication fibers the core radius is a < 5 mm to ensure single
mode operation.
Electromagnetic Approach
• Single Mode Fibers:
• Few Approximations:
• Mode index can be approximated by:

• Normalized propagation constant can be approximated by:

This is accurate within 0.2% for V in the range between 1.5-2.5

• The fundamental mode is almost TEM for low contrast fibers and is denoted by LP01
(linearly polarized) mode which could be along x or y directions.
Electromagnetic Approach
• Mode Birefringence:
• The aforementioned LP01 modes are
degenerate
• Birefringence is observed when the
degeneracy is broken:

• It leads to periodic power exchange and

beat length:
Electromagnetic Approach
• Mode Birefringence:
• Birefringence changes randomly in both magnitude and direction on account
of random anisotropic stress and variations in core shape
State of polarization in fiber becomes random quickly
Different frequency components of a pulse acquire different polarization
states, which broaden the pulse shape and incur ISI
This is referred to as the Polarization Mode Dispersion
• This issue is remedied by inducing intentional birefringence, which results in
Polarization Maintaining Fiber
Electromagnetic Approach
• Birefringence is typically about 10-7, which results in beat lengths of
about 15 m at the free space wavelength of 1.5 mm.
• Intentional birefringence is about 10-4 in PM fibers and overcomes
random fluctuations.
• PM fibers are rarely used in telecommunication because
• It is expensive
• Incurs high loss
Electromagnetic Approach
• Spot Size and Effective Area:
• The field distribution can be approximated by a Gaussian distribution:

• The following relation is accurate within 1% for 1.2 < V < 2.4:

• The effective area can be approximated by:

Electromagnetic Approach
• Spot Size and Effective Area:
• The confinement factor is:
Electromagnetic Approach
• Spot Size and Effective Area:

• Nearly 75% of the mode power remains within the core for V =2
• This percentage drops to 20% for V = 1

Most single mode fibers are designed to operate between 2 < V < 2.4
HE11 mode has no cut-off but does not practically guide the lightwave on
account of low confinement factor.

• Effective area can be accurately defined