Guillermo Aramendia
Optical Isolators and Circulators
University of Nevada, Reno
Abstract
Term IndexIsolators optical circulators
[Link]
Isolators and circulators can be employed in
different applications depending on the operating
frequency. But both devices are employed for the
same purpose. The isolator will allow the wave to
propagate in only one direction, i.e. the isolator will
attenuate the waves that have been reflected. This is
really interesting because the losses and the
distortion are lowered. Another interesting point is
that the isolator also can avoid instabilities, i.e. light
entering the laser-diode or LED. A circulator on the
other hand can be very useful for multiplexing.
There are two cases that are going to be analysed.
The first one is to use a single fibre instead of two;
in other words, the cost of the whole project could
be reduced by two because we are using only one
fibre; the second one is if the system requires to
send many wavelengths in a single fibre, circulators
are required. A circulator is device that permits the
wave to travel only in a certain direction; similar to
the isolator but this device has 3 or 4 ports. Also it
permits the communication to be in the same
channel between the receiver and the transmitter i.e.
only using one fibre.
II.
THEORY AND ANALYSIS
An optical isolator is passive device that only
permits the propagation of light in a certain
direction. Both optical and magnetic properties have
to be employed in order to control in which
direction light is propagating. They are commonly
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employed in order to protect the optical sources
from reflections.
Faraday Rotation
In a glass with no attenuation and under the
constant effect of a H-field applied along the z
direction a certain wavelength propagates. The light
is linearly polarized and its propagation direction is
z in axis; the E-field is in the x-axis and the H-field
is in the y-axis. [1] Since the wave is linearly
polarized it can be considered that the light is left
and right polarized as follows.
A.
However the components of the waves are
propagating with a different phase constant;
therefore the previous equation ends being:
Which finally can be developed into
This wave has a phase delay of
The delay is provoked once the light enters the
magneto optic material. The total rotation angle can
be [2] calculated as
Where V is the Verdet constant, B is the magnetic
flux density and L is the length of the rotator.
B. Isolator
The aim of the isolator is to block waves
travelling in the reversed direction. A common
value for the rotation is 45 degrees. The reason is
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that a wave with zero phase propagating through the
isolator will be shifted 45 degrees; the wave coming
on the other direction, which already has been
rotated
45
Figure II1 Faraday rotation Schematic where is the
rotated angle
degrees, will be rotated again and the total rotation
will be 90 degrees. Once the wave enters the
polarizer it will be attenuated and the wave will
disappear. This effect will be better explained with a
picture. [3]
The forward mode
The reverse mode
As it can be on the picture the wavelengths that are
propagating on the opposite direction get
completely attenuated by the input polarizer.
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C. Circulators
These passive devices usually have 3 to 4
ports and main characteristic is that light only can
propagate in a certain direction; like in isolators.
However, these devices are more complex because
there are 3 or more ports. The concept behind is
very similar to the one in isolators; a H-field will
make the light only propagate in a certain direction.
[4] In optical frequencies we cannot use ferrites;
therefore we have to find another material that
allows the propagation of light and also permits the
circulation of a H-field; for example,[5]
ferromagnetic garnet.
Circulators are an essential device for
bidirectional links because in a single channel
waves can be sent and received. They permit to
receivers and transmitters to share a fibre in this
case.
D. Functionalism of Circulators
Light travelling in one direction through a
Faraday rotator has its polarisation rotated in one
particular direction. [6] if a wave enters the Faraday
rotator from the opposite direction, its phase rotates
in the opposite direction.
This is complicated by the presence of
unpredictable
polarisation.
The
unwanted
polarisation can be filtered but the waves of
interested could be reduced by half in the process of
filtering - and often a lot more. Therefore, the
incident ray is separated into two orthogonally
polarised rays and each polarisation will be treated
separately. Both halves of the ray will be combined
before going to the output port. Figure 3 shows how
the light only can propagate in a certain direction in
the circulator
Circulator are composed by three devices:
1. Polarising Beam Splitter Cube
The aim of this device is to separate the input ray
into two orthogonally polarised rays. The principles
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involved were described in 5.4.4, Beamsplitter
Prisms on page 196.
2. Birefringence Block
This is just a block of birefringence material
cut at 45 to the optic axis. A birefringence material
has the property of varying its refractive index
depending on the polarization and propagation of
light. An incident ray normal to the air-crystal
interface is split into two rays of perpendicular
polarisation.
The ordinary ray is not refracted and passes
through with no attenuation. The extraordinary ray,
however, is refracted at an angle.
3. Faraday Rotator and Phase Plate
These two devices will permit light to
propagate in one direction with no attenuation. If
light is propagating on the other direction, it will be
rotated 90 comparing to the initial light.
The light travelling in forward direction, the
Faraday rotator provides a rotation of 45
(clockwise) and the phase plate rotates the light
another 45 (also clockwise). Thus we get a net 90
clockwise rotation.
The light in the backward direction, the
phase plate rotates it in the same direction (in
relation to the direction of the ray of light) but this
time the resulting anti-clockwise at 45. The
Faraday rotator however rotates the phase in the
opposite direction (in relation to the direction of the
ray) as it did before, that is, clockwise by the same
45. That is the phase is rotated in the opposite
direction. Thus there is no net change in
polarisation.
Another interesting topic is the losses that
might be provoked in the circulator. Circulators are
passive devices i.e. there is no DC consumption and
therefore there is no amplification. Therefore there
will be certain losses due to the propagation.
However, if these losses are neglected the S matrix
will look like
where gamma is the reflection coefficient.
PROBLEM FORMULATION
I can create a link and make the calculations that
will make the link to work.
Make up some numbers for distances and then use
real devices in order to make the calculations.
In this problem I could also add isolators but since
there are two circulators already, I dont think they
are going to be useful .
The original idea was to develop a circulator in CST
Studio 2013, but the required machine it is not
available.
There are plenty of sources for microwave, which in
optical frequency the process is going to be similar
but with different materials.
I am going to determine the maximum length so
that the link works; first with attenuation
approximation and then dispersion. These are the
devices that am I going to use:
Laser Diode 1550nm, 100mW, PL15D1001OOA-0P-01 ;
the fibre is going to be F-SM1500SC-7/125 with an
attenuation of 0.7 dB/km
SM05PD4A mounted InGaAs photodiode
using this equation we obtain that the minimum
power for a bit rate of 20Gbps (a bandwidth of
40GHz) and SNR of 20dB is -53 dBm.
The output power of the laser diode is 100mW or
20dBm. The attenuation in the fibre is 0.7dB/km
and
therefore
the
maximum
length
III.
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Which length equals 90 km. It has to be said that
in the previous calculus there is a 10 dB margin for
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the losses provoked by the circulators. Now we
have to analyse if the dispersion will make
impossible the link.
IV.
NUMERICAL RESULTS
V.
DICUSSION
VI.
CONCLUSION
A.
VII. REFERENCES
[1] Foundation for Microwave Engineering
Robert E. Collin
[2][Link]
html
[3] Isolators, F. O. (2013). Starts on. Thorlabs,
672676. Retrieved from
[Link]
(Isolators, 2013)
[4]
[5] Journal of Materials Science
March 1969, Volume 4, Issue 3, pp 271-281
Ferrimagnetic garnet thin films: Growth, structure
and some magnetic properties
M. Oron, I. Barlow, W. F. Traber
[6]
[Link]
addicional/ibm/ch05/[Link]#Heading21
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