COURSE OBJECTIVES: 1.

 [Link] realize the significance of optical fiber communications.

 [Link] understand the construction and characteristics of optical fiber cable.
 3. To develop the knowledge of optical signal sources and power launching.
 4. To identify and understand the operation of various optical detectors.
 5. To under the design of optical systems and WDM.

UNIT I

OVERVIEW OF OPTICAL FIBER COMMUNICATION:

Introduction, The general Optical Fiber communication system, advantages of optical fiber
communications. Optical fiber wave guides-

Introduction, Ray theory transmission, Total Internal Reflection, Acceptance angle, Numerical Aperture,
Skew rays. Cylindrical fibers- Modes

Fiber materials, Fiber fabrication techniques, fiber optic cables, Classification of Optical Fibers: Single
mode fibers, Graded Index fibers.

UNIT II

SIGNAL DISTORTION IN OPTICAL FIBERS: Attenuation, Absorption, Scattering and Bending

losses, Core and Cladding losses. Information capacity determination, Group delay, Types of Dispersion -

Material dispersion, Wave-guide dispersion, Polarization mode dispersion, Intermodal dispersion, pulse
broadening.

Optical fiber Connectors- Connector types, Single mode fiber connectors, Connector return loss.

Introduction to Optical Fibers splicing

UNIT III

OPTICAL SOURCES: Intrinsic and extrinsic material-direct and indirect band gaps-LED-LED
structuressurface emitting LED-Edge emitting LED-quantum efficiency and LED power-light source
materials modulation of LED.
LASER diodes- modes and threshold conditions-Rate equations-external quantum efficiency resonant
frequencies-structures and radiation patterns-single mode laser-external modulation temperature effects.

UNIT IV

OPTICAL DETECTORS AND RECEIVERS:

Physical principles of PIN and APD, Detector response time, Temperature effect on Avalanche gain,
Comparison of Photo detectors.

Optical receiver operation- Fundamental receiver operation, Digital signal transmission, error sources,
Receiver configuration.

UNIT V

OPTICAL SYSTEM DESIGN: Considerations, Component choice, Multiplexing, Point-to- point links,

System considerations, Link power budget with examples. Rise time budget with examples.

WDM –Passive DWDM Components-Elements of optical networks-SONET/SDH

TEXT BOOKS: [Link] Fiber Communications – Gerd Keiser, Tata Mc Graw-Hill International
edition, 4th Edition, 2008.

2. Optical Fiber Communications – John M. Senior, PHI, 2nd Edition, 2002.

REFERENCE BOOKS: 1. Fiber Optic Communications – D.K. Mynbaev , S.C. Gupta and Lowell L.
Scheiner, Pearson Education, 2005. 2. Text Book on Optical Fibre Communication and its Applications –
[Link], PHI, 2005. 3. Fiber Optic Communication Systems – Govind P. Agarwal , John Wiley, 3rd
Ediition, 2004. 4. Fiber Optic Communications – Joseph C. Palais, 4th Edition, Pearson Education, 2004.

COURSE OUTCOMES: At the end of the course the student will be able to: 1. Understand and analyze
the constructional parameters of optical fibers. 2. Be able to design the optical system. 3. Estimate the
losses due to attenuation, absorption, scattering and bending. 4. Compare various optical detectors and
choose suitable one for different applications.

UNIT I

OVERVIEW OF OPTICAL FIBER COMMUNICATION: INTRODUCTION

Introduction

Fiber-optic communication is a method of transmitting information from one place to another by sending
pulses of light through an optical fiber. The light forms an electromagnetic carrier wave that is modulated
to carry information.[1] Fiber is preferred over electrical cabling when high bandwidth, long distance, or
immunity to electromagnetic interference are required. This type of communication can transmit voice,
video, and telemetry through local area networks, computer networks, or across long distances.

Optical fiber is used by many telecommunications companies to transmit telephone signals, Internet
communication, and cable television signals. Researchers at Bell Labs have reached internet speeds of
over 100 peta bit ×kilometer per second using fiber-optic communication.

The process of communicating using fiber-optics involves the following basic steps:

1. Creating the optical signal involving the use of a transmitter, usually from an electrical signal

2. relaying the signal along the fiber, ensuring that the signal does not become too distorted or weak

3. eceivingr the optical signal 4. converting it into an electrical signal

Historical Development

First developed in the 1970s, fiber-optics have revolutionized the telecommunications industry and have
played a major role in the advent of the Information Age. Because of its advantages over electrical
transmission, optical fibers have largely replaced copper wire communications in core networks in the
developed world.

In 1880 Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Charles Sumner Tainter created a very early precursor
to fiber-optic communications, the Photophone, at Bell's newly established Volta

Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Bell considered it his most important invention. The device allowed for
the transmission of sound on a beam of light. On June 3, 1880, Bell conducted the world's first wireless
telephone transmission between two buildings, some 213 meters apart.[4][5] Due to its use of an
atmospheric transmission medium, the Photophone would not prove practical until advances in laser and
optical fiber technologies permitted the secure transport of light. The Photophone's first practical use
came in military communication systems many decades later.
In 1954 Harold Hopkins and Narinder Singh Kapany showed that rolled fiber glass allowed light to be
transmitted. Initially it was considered that the light can traverse in only straight medium. Jun-ichi

Nishizawa, a Japanese scientist at Tohoku University, proposed the use of optical fibers for
communications in 1963. Nishizawa invented the PIN diode and the static induction transistor, both of
which contributed to the development of optical fiber communications.

In 1966 Charles K. Kao and George Hockham at STC Laboratories (STL) showed that the losses of 1,000
dB/km in existing glass (compared to 5–10 dB/km in coaxial cable) were due to contaminants which
could potentially be removed.

Optical fiber was successfully developed in 1970 by Corning Glass Works, with attenuation low enough
for communication purposes (about 20 dB/km) and at the same time GaAs semiconductor lasers were
developed that were compact and therefore suitable for transmitting light through fiber optic cables for
long distances.

In 1973, Optelecom, Inc., co-founded by the inventor of the laser, Gordon Gould, received a contract
from APA for the first optical communication systems. Developed for Army Missile Command in

Huntsville, Alabama, it was a laser on the ground and a spout of optical fiber played out by missile to
transmit a modulated signal over five kilometers.

After a period of research starting from 1975, the first commercial fiber-optic communications system
was developed which operated at a wavelength around 0.8 μm and used GaAs semiconductor lasers.

This first-generation system operated at a bit rate of 45 Mbit/s with repeater spacing of up to 10 km.

Soon on 22 April 1977, General Telephone and Electronics sent the first live telephone traffic through
fiber optics at a 6 Mbit/s throughput in Long Beach, California.

In October 1973, Corning Glass signed a development contract with CSELT and Pirelli aimed to test fiber
optics in an urban environment: in September 1977, the second cable in this test series, named

COS-2, was experimentally deployed in two lines (9 km) in Turin, for the first time in a big city, at a
speed of 140 Mbit/s.
Historical Development

First developed in the 1970s, fiber-optics has revolutionized the telecommunications industry
and have played a major role in the advent of the Information Age. Because of its advantages
over electrical transmission, optical fibers have largely replaced copper wire communications in
core networks in the developed world.

In 1880 Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Charles Sumner Tainter created a very early
precursor to fiber-optic communications, the Photophone, at Bell's newly established Volta

Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Bell considered it his most important invention. The device
allowed for the transmission of sound on a beam of light. On June 3, 1880, Bell conducted the
world's first wireless telephone transmission between two buildings, some 213 meters apart. Due
to its use of an atmospheric transmission medium, the Photophone would not prove practical
until advances in laser and optical fiber technologies permitted the secure transport of light. The
Photophone's first practical use came in military communication systems many decades later.

In 1954 Harold Hopkins and Narinder Singh Kapany showed that rolled fiber glass allowed light
to be transmitted. Initially it was considered that the light can traverse in only straight medium.
Jun-ichi Nishizawa, a Japanese scientist at Tohoku University, proposed the use of optical fibers
for communications in 1963. Nishizawa invented the PIN diode and the static induction
transistor, both of which contributed to the development of optical fiber communications.

In 1966 Charles K. Kao and George Hockham at STC Laboratories (STL) showed that the losses
of 1,000 dB/km in existing glass (compared to 5–10 dB/km in coaxial cable) were due to
contaminants which could potentially be removed.

Optical fiber was successfully developed in 1970 by Corning Glass Works, with attenuation low
enough for communication purposes (about 20 dB/km) and at the same time GaAs
semiconductor lasers were developed that were compact and therefore suitable for transmitting
light through fiber optic cables for long distances.

In 1973, Optelecom, Inc., co-founded by the inventor of the laser, Gordon Gould, received a
contract from APA for the first optical communication systems. Developed for Army Missile
Command in Huntsville, Alabama, it was a laser on the ground and a spout of optical fiber
played out by missile to transmit a modulated signal over five kilometers.

After a period of research starting from 1975, the first commercial fiber-optic communications
system was developed which operated at a wavelength around 0.8 μm and used GaAs
semiconductor lasers.

This first-generation system operated at a bit rate of 45 Mbit/s with repeater spacing of up to 10
km.

Soon on 22 April 1977, General Telephone and Electronics sent the first live telephone traffic
through fiber optics at a 6 Mbit/s throughput in Long Beach, California.

In October 1973, Corning Glass signed a development contract with CSELT and Pirelli aimed to
test fiber optics in an urban environment: in September 1977, the second cable in this test series,
named

COS-2, was experimentally deployed in two lines (9 km) in Turin, for the first time in a big city,
at a speed of 140 Mbit/s.

The second generation of fiber-optic communication was developed for commercial use in the
early 1980s, operated at 1.3 μm and used InGaAsP semiconductor lasers. These early systems
were initially limited by multi mode fiber dispersion, and in 1981 the single-mode fiber was
revealed to greatly improve system performance, however practical connectors capable of
working with single mode fiber proved difficult to develop. Canadian service provider SaskTel
had completed construction of what was then the world's longest commercial fiber optic
network, which covered 3,268 km (2,031 mi) and linked 52 communities.[11] By 1987, these
systems were operating at bit rates of up to

1.7 Gb/s with repeater spacing up to 50 km (31 mi).

The first transatlantic telephone cable to use optical fiber was TAT-8, based on Desurvire
optimised laser amplification technology. It went into operation in 1988.
Third-generation fiber-optic systems operated at 1.55 μm and had losses of about 0.2 dB/km.
This development was spurred by the discovery of Indium gallium arsenide and the development
of the Indium Gallium Arsenide photodiode by Pearsall. Engineers overcame earlier difficulties
with pulsespreading at that wavelength using conventional InGaAsP semiconductor lasers.
Scientists overcame this difficulty by using dispersion-shifted fibers designed to have minimal
dispersion at 1.55 μm or by limiting the laser spectrum to a single longitudinal mode.

These developments eventually allowed third-generation systems to operate commercially at

2.5 Gbit/s with repeater spacing in excess of 100 km (62 mi).

The fourth generation of fiber-optic communication systems used optical amplification to reduce
the need for repeaters and wavelength-division multiplexing to increase data capacity. These two
improvements caused a revolution that resulted in the doubling of system capacity every six
months starting in 1992 until a bit rate of 10 Tb/s was reached by 2001. In 2006 a bit-rate of 14
Tbit/s was reached over a single 160 km (99 mi) line using optical amplifiers.

The focus of development for the fifth generation of fiber-optic communications is on extending
the wavelength range over which a WDM system can operate. The conventional wavelength
window, known as the C band, covers the wavelength range 1.53–1.57 μm, and dry fiber has a
low-loss window promising an extension of that range to 1.30–1.65 μm. Other developments
include the concept of "optical solutions", pulses that preserve their shape by counteracting the
effects of dispersion with the nonlinear effects of the fiber by using pulses of a specific shape.

In the late 1990s through 2000, industry promoters, and research companies such as KMI, and
RHK predicted massive increases in demand for communications bandwidth due to increased use
of the Internet, and commercialization of various bandwidth-intensive consumer services, such
as video on demand. Internet protocol data traffic was increasing exponentially, at a faster rate
than integrated circuit complexity had increased under Moore's Law. From the bust of the dot-
com bubble through 2006, however, the main trend in the industry has been consolidation of
firms and offshoring of manufacturing to reduce costs. Companies such as Verizon and AT&T
have taken advantage of fiber-optic communications to deliver a variety of high-throughput data
and broadband services to consumers' homes.
Advantages of Fiber Optic Transmission

Optical fibers have largely replaced copper wire communications in core networks in the
developed world, because of its advantages over electrical transmission. Here are the main
advantages of fiber optic transmission.

Extremely High Bandwidth: No other cable-based data transmission medium offers the
bandwidth that fiber does. The volume of data that fiber optic cables transmit per unit time is far
great than copper cables.

Longer Distance: in fiber optic transmission, optical cables are capable of providing low power
loss, which enables signals can be transmitted to a longer distance than copper cables.

Resistance to Electromagnetic Interference: in practical cable deployment, it’s inevitable to meet

environments like power substations, heating, ventilating and other industrial sources of
interference. However, fiber has a very low rate of bit error (10 EXP-13), as a result of fiber
being so resistant to electromagnetic interference. Fiber optic transmission is virtually noise free.

Low Security Risk: the growth of the fiber optic communication market is mainly driven by
increasing awareness about data security concerns and use of the alternative raw material. Data
or signals are transmitted via light in fiber optic transmission. Therefore there is no way to detect
the data being transmitted by "listening in" to the electromagnetic energy "leaking" through the
cable, which ensures the absolute security of information.

Small Size: fiber optic cable has a very small diameter. For instance, the cable diameter of a
single

OM3 multimode fiber is about 2mm, which is smaller than that of coaxial copper cable. Small
size saves more space in fiber optic transmission.

Light Weight: fiber optic cables are made of glass or plastic, and they are thinner than copper
cables.

These make them lighter and easy to install.

Easy to Accommodate Increasing Bandwidth: with the use of fiber optic cable, new equipment
can be added to existing cable infrastructure.

Because optical cable can provide vastly expanded capacity over the originally laid cable. And
WDM (wavelength division multiplexing) technology, including CWDM and DWDM, enables
fiber cables the ability to accommodate more bandwidth.

Disadvantages of Fiber Optic Transmission

Though fiber optic transmission brings lots of convenience, its disadvantages also cannot be
ignored. Fragility: usually optical fiber cables are made of glass, which lends to they are more
fragile than electrical wires. In addition, glass can be affected by various chemicals including
hydrogen gas (a problem in underwater cables), making them need more cares when deployed
under ground.

Difficult to Install: it’s not easy to splice fiber optic cable. And if you bend them too much, they
will break. And fiber cable is highly susceptible to becoming cut or damaged during installation
or construction activities. All these make it difficult to install.

Attenuation & Dispersion: as transmission distance getting longer, light will be attenuated and
dispersed, which requires extra optical components like EDFA to be added.

Cost Is Higher Than Copper Cable: despite the fact that fiber optic installation costs are dropping
by as much as 60% a year, installing fiber optic cabling is still relatively higher than copper
cables.

Because copper cable installation does not need extra care like fiber cables. However, optical
fiber is still moving into the local loop, and through technologies such as FTTx (fiber to the
home, premises, etc.) and PONs (passive optical networks), enabling subscriber and end user
broadband access.

Special Equipment Is Often Required: to ensure the quality of fiber optic transmission, some
special equipment is needed. For example, equipment such as OTDR (optical time-domain
reflectometry) is required and expensive, specialized optical test equipment such as optical
probes and power meter are needed at most fiber endpoints to properly provide testing of optical
fiber.

Applications of Optical Fiber Communications

Fiber optic cables find many uses in a wide variety of industries and applications. Some uses of
fiber optic cables include:

• Medical

Used as light guides, imaging tools and also as lasers for surgeries

• Defense/Government

Used as hydrophones for seismic waves and SONAR , as wiring in aircraft, submarines and other
vehicles and also for field networking

• Data Storage

Used for data transmission

• Telecommunications

Fiber is laid and used for transmitting and receiving purposes

• Networking

Used to connect users and servers in a variety of network settings and help increase the speed
and accuracy of data transmission

• Industrial/Commercial

Used for imaging in hard to reach areas, as wiring where EMI is an issue, as sensory devices to
make temperature, pressure and other measurements, and as wiring in automobiles and in
industrial settings

• Broadcast/CATV
Broadcast/cable companies are using fiber optic cables for wiring CATV, HDTV, internet, video
ondemand and other applications

Fiber optic cables are used for lighting and imaging and as sensors to measure and monitor a vast
array of variables. Fiber optic cables are also used in research and development and testing
across all the above mentioned industries

The optical fibers have many applications. Some of them are as follows − • Used in telephone
systems • Used in sub-marine cable networks • Used in data link for computer networks, CATV
Systems • Used in CCTV surveillance cameras • Used for connecting fire, police, and other
emergency services. • Used in hospitals, schools, and traffic management systems. • They have
many industrial uses and also used for in heavy duty constructions.

Block Diagram of Optical Fiber Communication System

Fig 1: Block Diagram of Optical Fiber Communication System

Message origin:

Generally message origin is from a transducer that converts a non-electrical message into an
electrical signal. Common examples include microphones for converting sound waves into
currents and video (TV) cameras for converting images into current. For data transfer between
computers, the message is already in electrical form.

Modulator:
The modulator has two main functions.

1) It converts the electrical message into proper format.

2) It impresses this signal onto the wave generated by the carrier source.

wo distinct categories of modulation are used i.e. analog modulation and digital modulation.

Carrier source:

. Carrier source generates the wave on which the information is transmitted. This wave is called
the carrier. For fiber optic system, a laser diode (LD) or a light emitting diode (LED) is used.
They can be called as optic oscillators, they provide stable, single frequency waves with
sufficient power for long

Distance propagation.

Channel coupler:

Coupler feeds the power into information channel. For an atmospheric optic system, the channel
coupler is a lens used for collimating the light emitted by the source and directing this light
towards the receiver. The coupler must efficiently transfer the modulated light beam from the
source to the optic fiber. The channel coupler design is an important part of fiber system because
of possibility of

High losses.

Information channel:

. The information channel is the path between the transmitter and receiver. In fiber optic
communications, a glass or plastic fiber is the channel. Desirable characteristics of the
information channel include low attenuation and large light acceptance cone angle. Optical
amplifiers boost the power levels of weak signals. Amplifiers are needed in very long links to
provide sufficient power to the receiver. Repeaters can be used only for digital systems. They
convert weak and distorted optical signals to electrical ones and then regenerate the original
digital pulse trains for further transmission.

. Another important property of the information channel is the propagation time of the waves
travelling along it. A signal propagating along a fiber normally contains a range of fiber optic
frequencies and divides its power along several ray paths. This results in a distortion of the
propagation signal. In a digital system, this distortion appears as a spreading and deforming of
the pulses. The spreading is so great that adjacent pulses begin to overlap and become
unrecognizable as separate bits of information.

Optical detector:

. The information begin transmitted is detected by detector. In the fiber system the optic wave is
converted into an electric current by a photodetector. The current developed by the detector is
proportional to the power in the incident optic wave. Detector output current contains the
transmitted information. This detector output is then filtered to remove the constant bias and then
amplified.

. The important properties of photodetectors are small size, economy, long life, low power
consumption, high sensitivity to optic signals and fast response to quick variations in the optic
power.

. Signal processing includes filtering, amplification. Proper filtering maximizes the ratio of signal
to unwanted power. For a digital syst5em decision circuit is an additional block. The bit error
rate (BER) should be very small for quality communications.

Signal processing:

. Signal processing includes filtering, amplification. Proper filtering maximizes the ratio of signal
to unwanted power. For a digital syst5em decision circuit is an additional block. The bit error
rate (BER) should be very small for quality communications.

Message output:
. The electrical form of the message emerging from the signal processor is transformed into a
sound wave or visual image. Sometimes these signals are directly usable when computers or
other machines are connected through a fiber system.

Electromagnetic Spectrum

The radio waves and light are electromagnetic waves. The rate at which they alternate in polarity
is called their frequency (f) measured in hertz (Hz). The speed of electromagnetic wave (c) in
free space is approximately 3 x 108 m/sec. The distance travelled during each cycle is called as
wavelength (λ)

In fiber optics, it is more convenient to use the wavelength of light instead of the frequency with
light frequencies; wavelength is often stated in microns or nanometers.

1 micron (µ) = 1

Micrometre (1 x 10-6) 1 nano (n) = 10-9 meter

Fiber optics uses visible and infrared light. Infrared light covers a fairly wide range of
wavelengths and

is generally used for all fiber optic communications. Visible light is normally used for very short
range transmission using a plastic fiber.
 Fig 2: Electromagnetic Spectrum

Optical Fiber Waveguides

In free space light ravels as its maximum possible speed i.e. 3 x 108 m/s or 186 x 103 miles/sec.
When light travels through a material it exhibits certain behavior explained by laws of reflection,
refraction.

An optical wave guide is a structure that "guides" a light wave by constraining it to travel along a
certain desired path. If the transverse dimensions of the guide are much larger than the
wavelength of the guided light, then we can explain how the optical waveguide works using
geometrical optics and total internal reflection.
A wave guide traps light by surrounding a guiding region, called the core, made from a material
with index of refraction ncore, with a material called the cladding, made from a material with
index of refraction ncladding <ncore. Light entering is trapped as long as sinθ >
ncladding/nncore.

Light can be guided by planar or rectangular wave guides, or by optical [Link] optical fiber
consists of three concentric elements, the core, the cladding and the outer coating, often called
the buffer. The core is usually made of glass or plastic. The core is the light-carrying portion of
the fiber. The cladding surrounds the core. The cladding is made of a material with a slightly
lower index of refraction than the core. This difference in the indices causes total internal
reflection to occur at the core-cladding boundary along the length of the fiber. Light is
transmitted down the fiber and does not escape through the sides of the fiber.
• Fiber Optic Core: The inner light-carrying member with a high index of refraction.

• Cladding: The middle layer, which serves to confine the light to the core. It has a lower index
of refraction.

• Buffer: The outer layer, which serves as a "shock absorber" to protect the core and cladding
from damage. The coating usually comprises one or more coats of a plastic material to protect
the fiber from the physical environment. Sometimes metallic sheaths are added to the coating for
further physical protection.

• Light injected into the fiber optic core and striking the core-to-cladding interface at an angle
greater than the critical angle is reflected back into the core. Since the angles of incidence and
reflection are equal, the light ray continues to zigzag down the length of the fiber. The light is
trapped within the core. Light striking the interface at less than the critical angle passes into the
cladding and is lost.

• Fibers for which the refractive index of the core is a constant and the index changes abruptly at
the core-cladding interface are called step-index fibers.
Step-index fibers are available with core diameters of 100 mm to 1000 mm. They are well suited
to applications requiring high-power densities, such as delivering laser power for medical and
industrial applications.

• Multimode step-index fibers trap light with many different entrance angles; each mode in a
step-index multimode fiber is associated with a different entrance angle. Each mode therefore
travels along a different path through the fiber. Different propagating modes have different
velocities. As an optical pulse travels down a multimode fiber, the pulse begins to spread.
Pulses that enter well separated from each other will eventually overlap each other. This limits
the distance over which the fiber can transport data. Multimode step-index fibers are not well
suited for data transport and communications.

• In a multimode graded-index fiber the core has an index of refraction that decreases as the
radial distance from the center of the core increases. As a result, the light travels faster near the
edge of the core than near the center. Different modes therefore travel in curved paths with
nearly equal travel times. This greatly reduces the spreading of optical pulses.

• A single mode fiber only allows light to propagate down its center and there are no longer
different velocities for different modes. A single mode fiber is much thinner than a multimode
fiber and can no longer be analyzed using geometrical optics. Typical core diameters are
between 5 mm and 10 mm.
When laser light is coupled into a fiber, the distribution of the light emerging from the other end
reveals if the fiber is a multimode or single mode fiber.

Optical fibers are used widely in the medical field for diagnoses and treatment. Optical fibers
can be bundled into flexible strands, which can be inserted into blood vessels, lungs and other
parts of the body. An Endoscope is a medical tool carrying two bundles of optic fibers inside
one long tube. One bundle directs light at the tissue being tested, while the other bundle carries
light reflected from the tissue, producing a detailed image. Endoscopes can be designed to look
at regions of the human body, such as the knees, or other joints in the body

Example:

In a step-index fiber in the ray approximation, the ray propagating along the axis of the fiber has
the shortest route, while the ray incident at the critical angle has the longest route.
Determine the difference in travel time (in ns/km) for the modes defined by those two rays for a
fiber with ncore = 1.5 and ncladding = 1.485.

Solution:

If a ray propagating along the axis of the fiber travels a distance d, then a ray incident at the
critical angle θc travels a distance L = d/sinθc.

The respective travel times are td = dncore/c and tL = dncore/(sinθc c).

sinθc = ncladding/ncore.

θc = 81.9 deg.

For d = 1000 m we have td = 5000 ns and tL =5050.51 ns.

The difference in travel time is therefore 50.51 ns/km.

Ray theory

The phenomenon of splitting of white light into its constituents is known as dispersion. The
concepts of reflection and refraction of light are based on a theory known as Ray theory or
geometric optics, where light waves are considered as waves and represented with simple
geometric lines or rays.

The basic laws of ray theory/geometric optics

• In a homogeneous medium, light rays are straight lines. • Light may be absorbed or reflected •
Reflected ray lies in the plane of incidence and angle of incidence will be equal to the angle of
reflection.
• At the boundary between two media of different refractive indices, the refracted ray will lie in
the plane of incidence. Snell’s Law will give the relationship between the angles of incidence
and refraction.

Reflection depends on the type of surface on which light is incident. An essential condition for
reflection to occur with glossy surfaces is that the angle made by the incident ray of light with
the normal at the point of contact should be equal to the angle of reflection with that normal.

The images produced from this reflection have different properties according to the shape of the
surface. For example, for a flat mirror, the image produced is upright, has the same size as that of
the object and is equally distanced from the surface of the mirror as the real object. However, the
properties of a parabolic mirror are different and so on.

Refraction is the bending of light in a particular medium due to the speed of light in that
medium. The
speed of light in any medium can be given by

The refractive index for vacuum and air os 1.0 for water it is 1.3 and for glass refractive index is
1.5.

The refractive index for vacuum and air os 1.0 for water it is 1.3 and for glass refractive index is
1.5.

Here n is the refractive index of that medium. When a ray of light is incident at the interface of
two media with different refractive indices, it will bend either towards or away from the normal
depending on the refractive indices of the media.

According to Snell’s law, refraction can be represented as

Total internal reflection

To consider the propagation of light within an optical fiber utilizing the ray theory model it is
necessary to take account of the refractive index of the dielectric medium. Optical materials are
characterized by their index of refraction, referred to as [Link] refractive index of a medium is
defined as the ratio of the velocity of light in a vacuum to the velocity of light in the medium.

When a beam of light passes from one material to another with a different index of refraction, the
beam is bent (or refracted) at the interface (Figure 2).

where nI and nR are the indices of refraction of the materials through which the beam is
refracted and I and R are the angles of incidence and refraction of the beam. If the angle of
incidence is greater than the critical angle for the interface (typically about 82° for op

tical fibers), the light is reflected back into the incident medium without loss by a process known
as total internal reflection (Figure 3).