Fiber Optic Communication

Systems

Lec # 01
 Introduction
 Title: Fiber Optic Communication Systems
 Credit Hours: 3+1
 Class: BEE-12
 Semester: 8th
 Instructor(s):
– Instructor: Engineer Kiran Khurshid
– Lab Engineer: Engineer Haroon Mukhtar
 Recommended Book:
– Fiber Optic Communications by Joseph C.
Palais, Latest Edition.

 Reference Books:
– Optical Fiber Communications: Principles and
Practice by John M. Senior, Latest Edition,
Prentice Hall.
– Optical Fiber Communications by Gerd Keiser,
Latest Edition, McGraw Hill.
– Fiber-Optic Communication Systems by Govind
P. Agrawal
 Objective
To understand the concept of fiber
communication and its components for
the implementation of High Speed
Networks.
 Course Contents
 Overview
– Historical perspectives
– The basic communication systems
– Nature of light
– Advantages of light
– Application of fiber optic communications
  Optics Review
– Ray theory and applications
– Lenses
– Imaging
– Numerical aperture
– Diffraction
 Course Contents
 Lightwave Fundamentals cont…
– Electromagnetic waves
– Dispersion, pulse dispersion and information
– Polarization
– Critical angle Reflections 
 Optic Fiber Waveguide
– Step-index Fiber
– Graded-index fiber
– Attenuation
– Pulse distortion and information rate in optic fiber
– Construction of optic fiber
– Optic fiber cables
 Light Sources Course Contents
cont…
– Light emitting diodes
– Light emitting diodes operating characteristics
– Laser principles
– Laser diodes
– Laser diodes operating characteristics
– Distributed Feed-back Laser diodes
– Optical Amplifiers
– Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL)
Diodes 
 Light Detectors
– Principles of photo-detection
– Semiconductor photo diodes
– PIN photodiodes
– Avalanche Photodiodes
 Couplers and Connectors Course Contents
– Connector Principles cont…
– Splices
– Connectors
– Source Coupling 
 Distributed Networks and fiber components
 FDDI, SONET, ATM,SDH,WDM
– Fiber Bragg Gratings
– Other components
 PON
 Noise and Detection
– Thermal and shot noise
– Signal to noise ratio
– Error rates
– Mode-noise, Mode partition noise, Amplifier noise, Laser noise
and jitter
– Additional noise contributor
– Receiver circuit design 
 Course Contents
cont…

 Systems Design
– Analog Systems design
– Digital systems design
 DWDM Filters
– Fiber Grating Filters
– Fabry Perot Filters
– Multilayer Dielectric Thin-Film Filters
– Mach-Zehnder Interferometers

Photonic Networks
 Tentative Grading Policy

 Quiz 10%
 Assignments 10%
 Lab 20%
 Mid 20%
 Final Paper 40%
 Numbers
Units appearing frequently in this course are listed in
following table for convenient reference. This course uses
the MKSC (meter-kilogram second-coulomb) system as
much as possible.
Constants
 Frequency & Period
The frequency unit, the hertz, is equivalent to one cycle of
oscillation per second .
The time between successive peaks of an oscillation is
called the period and is given by the reciprocal of the wave
frequency. That is second per cycle is the reciprocal of the
cycles per second.
If f is the wave frequency and T is its period then T=1/f.
Prefix
Common Analog System

Following Table, summarizes the bandwidth requirements

of several analog systems.
 Sampling
When analog signals are transmitted digitally, the bit rate
depends on the
1. rate at which the analog signal is sampled
2. the coding scheme.

Why the standard 4-kHz telephone channel is

sampled 8000 times a second?
According to the sampling theorem, an analog signal
can be accurately transmitted if sampled at a rate of at
least twice the highest frequency contained in that
signal. For this reason the standard 4-kHz telephone
channel is sampled 8000 times a second.
 History
 Hand signal
 Smoke signal
 Boston, USA, 1870. An Irish physicist by the name
of John Tyndall gave a public demonstration of an
experiment which proved that light can follow a
curved path.
 Photophone
 Kapany in 1956 coined the term “fiber optics”
 Invention of laser in 1960
First generation
 Operating near 800 nm and used GaAs semiconducor
laser, commercially available in 1980
 Operated at bit rate of 45 Mbps and repeater spacing of
about 10 km (larger compared that of coaxial cable)
 Difficult to install and maintenance cost
Second generation
 Operating near 1300 nm where fiber loss is 1 db/km
(typically 0.5 db/km) and fiber exhibit minimum
dispersion.
 Uses InGaAsP semiconductor lasers and detectors.
 Available in early 80s
 By 1987 commercially available systems were operating at
bit rates of up to 1.7 Gbps and repeater spacing of about 50
km(SMF(Single Mode Fiber)).
Third generation

 Fiber has minimum loss at 1550 nm (realized in

1979 but dispersion was considerably large)
 Displayed more dispersion around 1550nm
 Dispersion shifted fibers could overcome the
dispersion problem, designed to have minimum
dispersion around 1550 nm.
 In 1990 commercially available systems were
operating at 2.5 Gbps and capable of operating at 10
Gbps. (DSF(Dispersion-shifted fiber) with single
longitudinal- mode lasers)
 Typical repeaters spacing is around 60-70 km
Fourth generation
 A drawback of third generation 1.55μm is that the
signal is regenerated periodically by using
electronic repeater.
 The fourth generation makes use of optical
amplifiers(1989) for increasing the repeater spacing
and WDM(wavelength-division multiplexing) for
increasing the bit rate.
 It employs erbium-doped fiber amplifiers(1990), 60
– 100 km apart.
 Several WDM systems were deployed across the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans during 1998–2001 in
response to the Internet induced increase in the data
traffic; they have increased the total capacity by
orders of magnitudes.
Fifth generation

 Concerned with finding the fiber dispersion problems

 Optical amplifiers have solved the loss problem but made the
dispersion problem worse
 Solution is based on the concept of optical solitons – optical
pulses that preserve their shape during propagation by
counteracting the effect of dispersion through the fiber
nonlinearity
The second and third telecom windows are further subdivided into
the following wavelength bands:

Band Description Wavelength range

O band original 1260–1360 nm
E band extended 1360–1460 nm
S band short wavelengths 1460–1530 nm
C band conventional 1530–1565 nm
(“erbium window”)
L band long wavelengths 1565–1625 nm
U band ultralong 1625–1675 nm
wavelengths
 Two types of modulation
– Digital
– Analog
 Carrier source:
– LED, laser diode
– Intensity modulation (IM): It should be emphasized
that the information being transmitted is contained in
the variation of the optic power.
– The output power of light emitter is always positive.
 Channel coupler:
– Fiber acceptance cone
 Information Channel: low attenuation, large acceptance
cone.
 Repeaters can be used only for digital systems
 Detector: Semiconductor photodiodes of various
designs are most commonly used.
 Signal processor: Amplification & filtering
Digital Transmission Rates of
Telephone System
 SONET
 SONET stands for synchronous system
 It has been developed a newer transmission standard for
worldwide use.
 It allows greater flexibility in adding new services to existing
SONET in installation.
 The basic SONET transmission rate is OC-1 at 51.8 Mbps the
electrical equivalent is STS-1
Fiber Distributed Data Interface
 The relationship between bandwidth and message type has
now been established for common music, voice, and video
communication networks. Such transmission required
bandwidths that depend on the desired rate of information
transfer.

 For higher speed data transfer, the fiber distributed data

interface (FDDI) has been specified to operate at a data rate
of 100 Mbps.

 An even faster LAN, the high performance parallel interface

(HPPI), operates at 800 Mbps.

 There is a steady evolution toward higher transmission rates a

data transfer becomes more important to business and
industry.
Fiber Distributed Data Interface
 Fiber systems operating below 100 kbps have low
transmission rates. Such systems can be readily, and cheaply,
constructed from available optic and electronic components.

 Rates from 100 kbps to 10 Mbps are only somewhat more

costly and difficult to implement. This is moderate range of
information rates.

 Rates from 10 Mbps to a few thousand Mbps (several Gbps),

improved circuits, light emitters, and light detectors must be
used.

 The range above several Gbps is very high and requires

added expense and care.
 Computing power levels
(decibels)
 A major part of system design involves keeping an account of the
optic power along the communications links.

 This account is usually necessary to ensure that the wave

incident on the detector has sufficient strength to be clearly and
correctly recognized

 In other instances the received power may even be too large for
the receiver.

 The designer must be certain this does not occur

 Decibels (dB) Calculation
 If the power is P1 watts at one pint in the system and P2 watts at some
point farther along the link, then P2/P1 is the fraction of the power
transmitted between the two locations

dB=10 log10P2/P1

P2=P1 10 dB/10

P2 P3
P1 P4
Decibels (dB) Calculation

P2 P3
P1 P4
 Suppose that the three elements in previous
slide have losses -11,-6 and -3 dB respectively.
Find the total loss of the combination. Find the
output power if the input power is 5mW.
 A system has -23 dB of loss. Compute its
efficiency.
 A light emitting diode radiates 2mW. Compute
the dBm value of this radiated power. The
power travels through a group of components
having a combined loss of 23 dB. Compute the
output power.
 Nature of Light
 Sometimes Light behaves as a Wave and
sometimes as a Particle
 Wave Nature of Light
 Light is an electromagnetic wave having a very
high oscillation frequency and a very short
wavelength.
 Although light waves have much higher
frequencies than radio waves, they both obey the
same laws and share many characteristics.
 All electromagnetic waves have electric and
magnetic waves associated with them and they all
travel very quickly.
– In free space electromagnetic waves travel at a velocity
of 3x108 m/s
 Wave Nature of Light (contd.)

 The wavelength of a light beam is given by

λ = v/f
Where v is the beam velocity and f is its frequency

 The frequency is determined by the emitting

source and does not change when the light travels
from one material to another
 Particle Nature of Light
 Sometimes Light behaves as if it were made up of
very small particles called photons. The energy of
a single photon is
Wp = hf
where h = 6.626 x 10-34J x s and is called Planck’s
constant
 Particle theory explains generation of light by
sources such as LEDs, Lasers and Laser Diodes.
 Particle theory also explains detection of light by
conversion of optic radiation to electric current.
 Find the number of photons incident on a
detector in 1 sec if the optic power is 1um
and the wavelength is 1 um.
 Advantages of Fibers
 The basic material for glass fibers is Silicon Dioxide
or transparent plastic, both of which are plentiful and
readily available.
 For long paths, fiber cables are cheaper to transport
and easier to install than metal cables as fibers are
smaller and lighter.
 Fiber cables are very strong and flexible and can be
wrapped around tight curves.
 One Fiber cable developed for the telephone
applications has more than 4 times the data carrying
capacity as compared to a twisted pair cable and the
diameter is 30 times less.
 Advantages of Fibers (contd.)

 No electric current flows through the fiber,

therefore, fibers have excellent rejection of radio-
frequency interference (RFI) and of
electromagnetic interference (EMI).
 We can pack numerous fibers together in a cable
to transmit many channels of information along a
single path without any cross talk
 Optic coupling eliminates the need for a common
ground between a fiber transmitter and receiver.
 Advantages of Fibers (contd.)

 Fiber optic systems can easily be incorporated into systems

originally designed for wire transmission.
 Fiber optic systems can even be made invisible to the user.
 Glass fibers can withstand extreme temperatures e.g. 800
Celsius leaves fiber unaffected.
 Security,Safety,no cross talk
Application of Fiber Optic
Communications
 Fiber Trunk Lines
 One of the first installed systems, fiber trunk lines connected telephone
offices in Chicago.

 The offices were spaced 1 and 2.4 km apart. Operating at the T3 rate,
each of the 24 fibers in the cable had a capacity to carry 672 voice
messages.

 With repeaters, messages can be sent over thousands of kilometers of

fiber. Because of low attenuation, separation between repeaters in a
fiber system can be greater than in a coaxial link.

 The savings in installation and maintenance costs can be considerable

when large repeater spacings are feasible
 TAT-8
 TAT-8, covers about 6000 km between the east coast of the
United States and Europe.

 With repeater spacing of 50 km, just over 100 repeaters are

necessary.

 Two fiber pairs, each operating at 295.6 Mbps and with special
coding methods, provide a total capacity of 40,000 voice
channels.

 More advanced systems use lower loss fibers and optical

amplifiers to reduce (or eliminate) the need for repeaters.
Higashi-Ikoma Optical Visual Information
System (Hi-OVIS)

 Hi OVIS also stands for Highly Interactive Optical Visual

Information system. The system consists of a center, subcenter, and
home terminals linked by optic transmission lines.

 The lines connect computers and video equipment. Each home

terminal has a TV set, camera, microphone, and keyboard. Two way
interactive communication is obtained.

 Services: Video request service, Home study course, Information

about local events, medical facilities, train timetables etc.
 Metallic communications links
 Metallic communications links installed along electrified railway tracks
suffer from electromagnetic interference from the electricity powering the
vehicles.
 Because of fiber rejection of EMI, signals traveling through fibers laid
along the track do not degrade.
– Optic communications are compatible with electrified railways. Wire systems
are not.

– Similarly, fibers can be placed near high voltage power lines without adverse
effects, whereas wire systems would be noisy.

– Fibers can even pass unaffected through area where electrical power is
generated or through power substations. Optic cables can be suspended
directly from power line towers, or poles, if clearance space permits and if the
load can be tolerated
 Cable Television System
(CATV)
 Cable television systems collect and distribute a large number of color
channels.

 The distances covered range from a few tens of meters to several

kilometers.

 CATV systems obtain their signals from various sources.

 These sources are satellite earth stations, microwave links, antennas

picking up broadcasts from nearby transmitters, and local studios where
programming originates.

 All these sources can be connected to the central distribution location (the
CATV headend) by fibers.
 Fiber System for Transmission of
Digital Data
 Fiber system are particularly suited for transmission of digital
data such as that generated by computes.

 Interconnections can be made between the central processing

unit (CPU) and peripherals, between CPUs and memory, and
between CPUs.

 Example: the connection of several hundred cathode ray-tube

(CRT) terminals, located throughout a high-rise, to a processor
located on one of the floors.
 Military Applications
 Military applications include communications ,command
and control links on ships and aircraft, data links for
satellite earth stations, and transmission lines for tactical
command-post communications.

 The important fiber characteristics are low weight ,small

size ,EMI rejection, and no signal radiation.

 On aircraft and ships the reduced shock, fire, and spark

hazards are significant assets.