UNIT – 2

Transmission Characteristics of optical Fibers

Syllabus: Introduction, Attenuation, Absorption, scattering lossess, bending losses,

dispersion , Intramodal dispersion, Intermodal dispersion.

Transmission Characteristics of optical fibers

When suitability of Optical fibers for communication are investigated , the

transmission characteristics of utmost interest are
1. Attenuation
2. Signal distortion

Attenuation plays major role in determining

- the maximum transmission distance between a transmitter and
receiver or an inline amplifier.

The Signal distortion of the fiber

- determines the bandwidth and hence volume of information that can
be transmitted in a given time.

Attenuation mechanisms in a fiber are

1 Material absorption:
- due to impurities of glass such as iron manganese , copper etc .
Can be reduced by containing these impurities during
manufacturing

2. Linear and non linear scattering

- associated with both fiber material and structural imperfection in
optical waveguide
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 3. fiber bends and radiative losses of the optical energy
– both microscopic and macroscopic bends

Attenuation Units:

As light travels along the fiber its power decreases exponentially with
distance

Decibels refer to Logarithm with Base 10 and Nepers refer to logarithm with
base e.
(Conversion factor: See the box below)

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Attenuation in Bits per kilometer:
Let Pi be the input power and Po be the power. Therefore Pi/Po = 10(dB/10). In
fiber optic communication the attenuation is usually expressed in Decibels
per unit length (i.e. dB/ Km) following:
α dB L = 10 log 10 (Pi/Po )
where α dB is the signal attenuation per unit length in decibels and L is the
fiber length.
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Example:
A signal of 10 mw is coupled to a 10 Km long fiber and a signal of 1
microwatt is detected at the end of the fiber. Find the loss in dB.
Solution:
Loss in dB = dB loss = 10 log10 (Pi/ Po)
= 10 log10 (10mw/ 10microwatt)
= 40 dB
This loss is for 10 kms. Hence loss per kilometer is 40dB/10 = 4 dB

Or attenuation is 4dB/km

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 ABSORPTION
1. Absorption due to atomic defects in the glass composition
a. Atomic defects – missing molecules, high density clusters
of atom groups, or oxygen defects in Glass
2. Extrinsic absorption by impurity atoms
3. intrinsic absorption by basic constituent atoms of the fiber
material
When fibers are used in radiation environments (Space, nuclear
plants, medical radiation therapies etc) the accumulated radiation
doses damage the internal structures. These atomic defects absorb
optical energy resulting in attenuation. The higher the radiation level
larger is the attenuation. However, these attenuation centers (atomic
defects) will relax or anneal out with time in the absence of radiation
(Fig 3.1 K4 p- 92)

Figure 3.1 :
Dominant absorption factor in Glass –
• presence of OH- ions dissolved in glass and

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 • other impurities like iron copper vanadium and chromium
Water impurity levels of less than a few parts per billion (ppb), are
required if the attenuation is to be less than 20 dB/km (that was in
early fibers).
The high levels of OH- in early fibers resulted in large absorption
peaks at 725, 950, 1240, 1380 nm. Regions of low attenuation lie
between these peaks.
The OH hydroxyl impurities are due to
• usage of oxyhydrogen flame during manufacture of glass.
Modern vapour phase method of manufacturing glass have
reduced these impurities drastically improving the attenuation
performance. SMF of 0.4 dB per km have been produced.

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Standard commercially available SMF have nominal attenuation of
0.4 dB/km at 1310 nm and less than 0.25 dB/km at 1550 nm. Further
elimination of water ions diminishes the absorption peak around
1440 nm and thus open up another band for data transmission (E
band). Optical fibers in this band are known by names such as “ low
water peak” or “full spectrum fiber”.
Intrinsic Absorption
INTRINSIC ABORPTION is associated with the basic fiber
material.
(eg: Pure SiO2 ) and
• is the principal physical factor, that defines the transparency
window of a material over a specified spectral region. Intrinsic
absorption thus sets the fundamental lower limit on absorption
for any particular material.
Intrinsic absorption results from electron absorption in the UV and
from atomic vibration bands in NIR. (Near Infra Red)
.

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In NIR region above 1.2 μm the loss is predominantly determined by
the presence of OH ions and the inherent IR absorption of the
constituent material

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Scattering Losses

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STIMULATED RAMAN SCATTERING:

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DISPERSION
• affects both digital and analog transmission

• for digital transmission the dispersion mechanism within the fiber

cause broadening of the transmitted pulses as they travel along
the channel

o each pulse broadens and overlaps with its neighbours eventually becoming
indistinguishable at the receiver input. (this effect is known as Inter Symbol
Interference).

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(ref: Fig 3.6 Senior book)

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Signal distortion in an optical fiber happens due to several reasons
1. Intermodal delays (MODAL DISPERSION)

2.Intramodal delays
3.Polarisation mode dispersions

INTERMODAL DISPERSION:

Pulse broadening resulting from the polarization delay difference between

modes within a MMF is known as Intermodal delay

- also known as intermodal delay or simply modal or mode dispersion

- appears only in MMF
- is due to different value of group velocity for each mode of the given
frequency
- pulse width at the output is dependent on transmission times of
slowest and fastest modes
- Step index fiber exhibit large amount of intermodal dispersion
- Intermodal dispersion may be reduced by using GIF (near parabolic
profile)
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Fig 1IM

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 Fig 2IM

• In an MMF , the steeper the angle of propagation of Ray Congruence, the

higher is the mode number and consequently the slower the axial group
velocity

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•

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INTRAMODAL DISPERSION

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 (Or Chromatic Dispersion or Group Velocity Dispersion)
• Is the pulse spreading that takes place in a SMF
• Spreading of pulse due to finite spectral width

- The spectral width (or wavelength band) is characterized by root mean square (rms)
spectral width σλ.
- For LED depending on the device structure the spectral width is approximately 4 to
9 % of its central wavelength. For e.g., in figure 3.11 the spectral width is 36 nm and
central wavelength is 850 nm.
- Laser based diodes have narrower spectral width of 1-2 nm and 10-4 nm for single
mode lasers.

Two main causes for Intramodal dispersion are as follows:

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 (a) Material dispersion/Chromatic dispersion
(a) Due to variations of RI of core material as a function of
wavelength
(b) As group velocity is a function of wavelength, the different
wavelength components of the source travels at different
speeds (even on the same path) resulting in pulse spreading
(b) Waveguide dispersion:
(a) As core and cladding has different RI signals travels faster in
cladding than in core resulting in dispersion.
(b) Waveguide dispersion can be ignored in MMF but its effect is
significant in SMF

POLARISATION MODE DISPERSION

In SMF light travels in two orthogonal modes.

At the start of the fiber the two polarization states are aligned.
However, since fiber material is not perfectly uniform through out its
length, each polarization mode will encounter a slightly different RI.
As a result each mode will travel at a slightly different velocity. This
causes pulse spreading.

If the resulting time difference in propagation times is denoted

as ∆τpmd (between two orthogonal polarization), and ‘L’ the distance
traveled by the pulse, then

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Unlike chromatic dispersion which is a relatively stable phenomenon, the PMD varies
randomly along a fiber. Due to this factor, the ∆τpmd cannot be used to compute the
total PMD. A statistical estimation need to be done.

DISPERSION CALCULATION

The total chromatic dispersion in SMF consists mainly of material and

waveguide dispersion. The resultant intra-modal and chromatic dispersion is
represented by

where τ is the group delay. The dispersion is commonly expressed in ps/(nm.km).

The broadening σ of an optical pulse over a fiber of length L is given by

where σλ is the half power spectral width of the optical source.

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 Extra Material
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