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ABSTRACT

Communication is an important part of our daily life. The communication process

involves information generation, transmission, reception and interpretation. As
needs for various types of communication such as voice, images, video and data
communications increase demands for large transmission capacity also increase.
This need for large capacity has driven the rapid development of light wave
technology; a worldwide industry has developed. An optical or light wave
communication system is a system that uses light waves as the carrier for
transmission. An optical communication system mainly involves three parts.
Transmitter, receiver and channel. In optical communication transmitters are light
sources, receivers are light detectors and the channels are optical fibers. In optical
communication the channel i.e, optical fibers play an important role because it
carries the data from transmitter to the receiver. Hence, here we shall discuss
mainly about optical fibers.
 Optical Fibers in Communications
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1. Introduction

Optical fibers are arguably one of the world’s most influential scientific developments from the latter
half of the 20th century. Normally we are unaware that we are using them, although many of us do
frequently. The majority of telephone calls and internet traffic at some stage in their journey will be
transmitted along an optical fiber. Why has the development of fibers been given so much attention by
the scientific community when we have alternatives? The main reason is bandwidth – fibers can carry an
extremely large amount of information. More indirectly, many of the systems that we either rely on or
enjoy in everyday life such as banks, television and newspapers as (to name only a very limited
selection) are themselves dependent on communication systems that are dependent on optical fibers.
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2. Fundamentals of Fibers

The fundamental principle that makes optical fibers possible is total internal reflection.

From Snell’s Law we find that refraction (as shown by the dashed line) can only occur when the angle
theta1 is large enough. This implies that as the angle is reduced, there must be a point when the light
ray is reflected, where theta1 = theta2.

The angle where this happens is known as the critical angle and is:

 When an ray of light travels from a denser to a rarer medium such that the angle of

incidence is greater than the critical angle, the ray reflects back into the same medium

this phenomena is called TIR.

 In the optical fiber the rays undergo repeated total number of reflections until it

emerges out of the other end of the fiber, even if fiber is bend.
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Acceptance Angle:

Acceptance Angle is the maximum angle with the axis of

the optical fiber ,at which light may enter the fiber, in order to be

propagated through it.

Numerical Aperture:

Numerical aperture is considered as a light gathering

capacity of an optical fiber. NA is defined as the Sine of Half of the

angle Of fiber’s light acceptance cone.

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V Number / Normalized Frequency

Definition: a normalized frequency parameter, which determines

the number of modes of a fiber.

 If V is less than 2.405 then the fiber is single mode

 If V is greater than 2.405 then fiber is multimode.

V number is also related with the number of modes is the fiber as:

N = V2/ 2 for step index fiber.

Number of modes for graded index fiber is N = V2/ 4

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CLASSIFICATION OF OPTICAL FIBERS

NOW WE ARE GOING TO DISCUSS ABOUT THE CLASSIFICATION

OF OPTICAL FIBERS BASED ON THEIR:-

1. MATERIAL USED

2. NUMBER OF MODES AND

3. REFRACTIVE INDEX

A. GLASS FIBERS:

THEY HAVE A GLASS CORE AND GLASS CLADDING. THE GLASS USED IN THE FIBER IS ULTRA PURE,

ULTRA TRANSPARENT SILICON DIOXIDE (SIO2) OR FUSED QUARTZ. IMPURITIES ARE PURPOSELY

ADDED TO PURE GLASS TO ACHIEVE THE DESIRED REFRACTIVE INDEX.

B. PLASTIC CLAD SILICA:

THIS FIBER HAS A GLASS CORE AND PLASTIC CLADDING. THIS PERFORMANCE THOUGH NOT AS GOOD

AS ALL GLASS FIBERS, IS QUITE RESPECTABLE.

C. PLASTIC FIBERS:

THEY HAVE A PLASTIC CORE AND PLASTIC CLADDING. THESE FIBERS ARE ATTRACTIVE IN
APPLICATIONS WHERE HIGH BANDWIDTH AND LOW LOSS ARE NOT A CONCERN.
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Based On Number Of Modes

Single Mode Fiber :

 In single mode fiber only one mode can propagate through the fiber.

 It has small core diameter (5um) and high cladding diameter (70um).

 Difference between the refractive index of core and cladding is very small.

 There is neither dispersion nor degradation therefore it is suitable for long distance
communication.

 The light is passed through the single mode fiber through laser diode.

Multi Mode Fiber :

 It allows a large number of modes for light ray travelling through it.

 The core diameter is 40um-100um and that of cladding is 70-125um.

 The relative refractive index difference is also large than single mode fiber.

 There is signal degradation due to multimode dispersion.

 It is not suitable for long distance communication due to large dispersion

and attenuation of signal.

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13. References

 Optical Fibers And Sources For Communications

---Adams and Henning,

 Principles Of Modern Optical Systems

--- Andonovic and Uttamchandani

 An Introduction to Optical Waveguides

---Adams, M. J.