This idea is very simple.

Let us fill
up a container with water and shone a light
into it. In a darkened room, then pull out
the bung. The light shone out of the hole
and the water gushed out. It is expected
that the light would shine straight out of the
hole and the water would curve downwards,
as in the diagram. But the light stayed
inside the water column and follows the
curved path. Nature had found a way to
guide light. What was expected and what
actually happened here lead to the basic
foundation of Optical Fiber. The basic
requirements still remain the same today, a
light source and a clear material (usually
plastic or glass) for the light to shine
through. The light can be guided around
any complex path. Being able to guide light
along a length of optic fiber has given rise
to two distinct areas of use, light guiding
and communications.
 Modern day optical fiber is
oriented towards faster rate of
communicating data between
source and destination. Fiber
might not to be in a line of sight,
now light can pass through the
complex loop as shown in the
figure.
This property of fiber to
conduct even on bending made it
more and more possessive
towards new area of research.
Why is OFC on such a hype

Optical fiber had a property

of communicating even when
bent without much attenuation
and on short versions of data
communication had no or
negligible data loss, which opted
it more in medical and IC chip
designing technology.
Conduction with or without
amplifier at the later stage and
its tiny structure had some
commanding influence in the
area of data communication.
 The angles of the
rays are measured with
respect to the normal.
This is a line drawn at
right angles to the
boundary line between
the two refractive indices,
core and cladding region.
The angles of the
incoming and outgoing
rays are called the angles
of incidence and
refraction respectively.
“Optical Fiber will lead an
example for all loss less
communication in mere future,
including IC technology”
And now the worlds fastest
calculating machine. Blue Gene/L ”,
Developed at Lawrence Livermore
National lab, is capable of calculating
280.6 trillion calculations/sec which
uses Optical fiber for its internal
connection has done the miracle as
stated above by Stephan Hawking
 Light n1 core
ray n2 cladding
Single-mode step-index Fiber no air

n1 core
n2 cladding
Multimode step-index Fiber no air
Variable
n
Multimode graded-index Fiber Index porfile
Advantages:
Minimum dispersion: all rays take same path,
same time to travel down the cable. A pulse
can be reproduced at the receiver very
accurately.
Less attenuation, can run over longer distance
without repeaters.
Larger bandwidth and higher information rate
Disadvantages:
Difficult to couple light in and out of the tiny
core
Highly directive light source (laser) is required.
Interfacing modules are more expensive
Multimode step-index Fibers:
inexpensive; easy to couple light into Fiber
result in higher signal distortion; lower TX
rate
Multimode graded-index Fiber:
intermediate between the other two types
of Fibers
Acceptance n2 cladding
Cone θC n1 core
n2 cladding

Acceptance angle, θc, is the maximum angle in which

external light rays may strike the air/Fiber interface
and still propagate down the Fiber with <10 dB loss.

−1 2 2 Numerical aperture:
θ C = sin n1 − n2 NA = sin θc = (n12 - n22)
 Transmitter
Input Coder or Light Source-to-Fiber
Signal Converter Source Interface

Fiber-optic Cable

Fiber-to-light Light Amplifier/Shaper Output

Interface Detector Decoder
Receiver
 High-speed integrated circuit technology
is the key to realizing large-capacity optical
fiber communication systems. This paper
describes the present status of 0. l-pm-gate
InP HEMT ICs for the next-generation 40-
Gbit/s/ch. systems. As an advanced IC
technology, this paper also describes a 4O-
Mbit/s OEIC that is monolithically fabricated
with a uni-traveling-carrier photodiode and
the 0.1-pm InP HEMTs.
The capability of monolithic
integration with a
photodiode is another great
merit of the InP HEMT.
The EDFA relaxes the gain
requirement for the
electrical amplifier in the
optical receiver.
Furthermore, a photodiode
that has broad bandwidth
and high saturation output
power, such as the UTC-PD
makes direct driving possible
at the characteristic
impedance of 50 ohms with
The basic 40-Gbit/s optical
sender (OS) and receiver (OR)
configurations. The functions
required for optical
communication ICs are basically
time-division multiplexing,
reshaping, retiming,
regenerating, and time-division
demultiplexing. Reshaping is
performed by the Er-doped fiber
amplifier (EDFA), photo detector
(PD), preamplifier (Pre) and
baseband amplifier (Base).
 One common misconception about optical fiber
is that it must be fragile because it is made of glass.
In fact, research, theoretical analysis, and practical
experience prove that the opposite is true. While
traditional bulk glass is brittle, the ultrapure glass of
optical fibers exhibits both high tensile strength and
extreme durability.
How strong is fiber?
Figures like 600 or 800 thousand pounds per
square inch are often cited, far more than copper’s
capability of 100 pounds per square inch. That figure
refers to the ultimate tensile strength of fiber
produced today. Fiber’s real, rather than theoretical;
strength is 2 million pounds per square inch.
Advantages:
more focussed radiation pattern; smaller
Fiber
much higher radiant power; longer span
faster ON, OFF time; higher bit rates
possible
monochromatic light; reduces dispersion
Disadvantages:
much more expensive
higher temperature; shorter lifespan
PIN Diodes
photons are absorbed in the intrinsic layer
sufficient energy is added to generate carriers in
the depletion layer for current to flow through the
device
Avalanche Photodiodes (APD)
photogenerated electrons are accelerated by
relatively large reverse voltage and collide with
other atoms to produce more free electrons
avalanche multiplication effect makes APD more
sensitive but also more noisy than PIN diodes
Less expensive - Several miles of optical cable can be
made cheaper than equivalent lengths of copper wire.
Higher carrying capacity - Because optical fibers are
thinner than copper wires, more fibers can be bundled
into a given-diameter cable than copper wires. This allows
more phone lines to go over the same cable.
Low power - Because signals in optical fibers degrade
less, lower-power transmitters can be used instead of the
high-voltage electrical transmitters needed for copper
wires.
Digital signals - Optical fibers are ideally suited for
carrying digital information, which is especially useful in
computer networks.
40-Gbit/s ICs for next-generation optical fiber
communication systems have been developed using
0.1 - pm InP HEMT technology. These ICs have
sufficient speed margins for the 40-Gbit/s data rate.
An optoelectronic decision IC monolithically
integrated with a UTC-PD and the InP HEMTs was
also confirmed to operate at 40 Gbit/s, and an
optical receiver using the OEIC offered high receiver
sensitivity.
Use of well-developed signal processing techniques
and algorithms to design these optical devices is a
wise use of existing technology.