LASER

Introduction

LASER stands for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. Laser emits pure sine waves
having a constant phase difference with respect to space and time. Laser is a device that emits light
(electromagnetic radiation) through a process is called stimulated emission. Now-a-days Lasers find wide
applications in communication systems, computers navigation equipments, measuring instruments and in
medicine.

Characteristics of Laser Light

The important characteristics of Laser over conventional light are:
i. Monochromaticity: A laser beam is more or less in single wave length. i.e. the line width of laser
beams is extremely narrow. Laser is more monochromatic than that of a conventional monochromatic
light. This is due to the stimulative emission by laser. The monochromatic nature of laser can be
explained by the degree of non-monochromaticity.

, where dλ or dν is the variation in wavelength or variation in frequency of

radiation.
For a good stable laser, dν is Hz and ν is 5×1014 Hz, we get
Whereas for the light from sodium vapor light the value of is 10-3.
ii. Directionality: Laser beam is highly directional because laser emits light only in one direction. It can
travel very long distances without divergence. The directionality of a laser beam can be expressed in
terms of divergence. Suppose r1 and r2 are the radii of laser beam at distances D1 and D2 from a laser,
and then we have
Divergence, ∆θ= (r1 - r2)/ D2-D1
The divergence for a laser beam is 0.01mill radian whereas in case of conventional light it is 0.5 radian.
iii. Coherence: Coherence is one of the unique properties of laser light. Coherence indicates a phase
relation of the emerging light. It arises from the stimulated emission process. Since a common stimulus
triggers the emission events which provide the amplified light, the emitted photons are in step and have
a definite phase relation to each other. This coherence is described in terms of temporal coherence and
spatial coherence in the case of Laser.
Spatial Coherence: If two light fields at different points in space maintain constant phase difference over
any time t, then they are said to have spatial coherence. The distance up to which same phase or
constant phase difference is maintained is called coherence length. For, He-Ne Laser the value is 600
Km. On the other hand, for a light from sodium vapor light it is 3 cm.
The degree of non-monochromaticity
Temporal Coherence: Temporal coherence refers to the correlation of phase between the light fields at a
point over a period of time.
For He-Ne laser it is 10-3 s and for sodium vapor light the value is 10-10 s.
iv. High intensity: In a laser beam lot of energy is concentrated in a small region. This concentration of
energy exists both spatially and spectrally, hence there is enormous intensity for laser beam. The power
range of laser is about 10-13w for gas laser and is about 109 w for pulsed solid state laser and the
diameter of the laser beam is about 1 mm. then the number of photons coming out from a laser per
second per unit area is given by
Nl=P/ hνπr2≈1022 to1034 photons/m-2-sec
By assuming hν=10-19 Joule, Power P=10-3to109watt r=0.5×10-3meter
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Based on Planck‘s black body radiation, the number of photons emitted per second per unit area by a
body with temperature T is given by
Nth= (2hπC/ λ4)(1/e(hν/kT)-1) dλ≈1016photons/[Link]
By assuming T=1000k, λ=6000A0
This comparison shows that laser is a highly intensive beam.

Spontaneous and stimulated emission

In lasers, the interaction between matter and light is of three different types. They are: absorption,
spontaneous emission and stimulates emission. Let E1 and E2 be ground and excited states of an atom. The
dot represents an atom. Transition between these states involves absorption and emission of a photon of
energy E2-E1=hν12. Where ‗h‘ is Planck‘s constant.

Absorption: As shown in fig8.1(a), if a photon of energy hν12(E2-E1) collides with an atom present in
the ground state of energy E1 then the atom completely absorbs the incident photon and makes transition to
excited state E2.

Spontaneous emission: As shown in fig8. 1. (b), an atom initially present in the excited state makes
transition voluntarily on its own, without any aid of external stimulus or an agency to the ground. State and
emits a photon of energy hν12 (=E2-E1).this is called spontaneous emission. These are incoherent.

Stimulated emission: As shown in fig8.1.(c), a photon having energy hν12(E2-E1)impinges on an atom

present in the excited state and the atom is stimulated to make transition to the ground state and gives off a
photon of energy hν12. The emitted photon is in phase with the incident photon. These are coherent. This
type of emission is known as stimulated emission.

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Differences between Spontaneous emission and stimulated emission of radiation

Spontaneous emission Stimulated emission

1. Spontaneous emission takes place 1. Stimulated emission takes place

when excited atoms make a when a photon of energy equal to
transition to lower energy level hν12(=E2-E1)stimulates an excited
voluntarily without any external atom to make transition to lower
stimulation. energy level.

2. Polychromatic radiation 2. Monochromatic radiation

3. Less intensity 3. High intensity

4. Less directionality, more angular 4. High directionality, so less angular

spread during propagation spread during propagation.

5. Spatially and temporally in 5. Specially and temporally coherent

coherent radiation radiation.

6. Example: Light from ordinary 6. Light from a Laser.

source

5.3 Population inversion

Usually in a system the number of atoms (N1) present in the ground state (E1) is larger than the number
of atoms (N2) present in the higher energy state. The process of making N2>N1 is called population
inversion. Conditions for population inversion are:
a) The system should possess at least a pair of energy levels (E2>E1), separated by an energy of equal
to the energy of a photon (hν).
b) There should be a continuous supply of energy to the system such that the atoms must be raised
continuously to the excited state.
Population inversion can be achieved by a number of ways. Some of them are (i) optical pumping (ii)
electrical discharge (iii) inelastic collision of atoms (iv) Chemical reaction and (v) direct conversion

5.4 Metastable state:

The excited states (particularly electronic states in laser gain media) which have a relatively long
lifetime due to slow radiative and non-radiative decay are called metastable states.
The life time of metastable state is 10-6 to 10-3 s.

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5.5 Pumping:
For maintaining a state of population inversion atoms have to be raised continuously to excited state. It
requires energy to be supplied to the system. The process of supplying energy to the medium with a
view to transfer it into state of population inversion is known as pumping. Simply, the process of
achieving population inversion is called pumping.
Commonly used pumping types are: —
1. Optical pumping
2. Electric discharge
3. Atom-Atom collision
4. Direct conversion
5. Chemical reactions
6. Injection current
5.6 Lasing action:
After completion of lifetime of electrons in the Meta stable state, they fall back to the lower energy state
or ground state by releasing energy in the form of photons. This process of emission of photons is called
spontaneous emission.
When this emitted photon interacts with the electron in
the Meta stable state, it forces that electron to fall back to
the ground state. As a result, two photons are emitted. This
process of emission of photons is called stimulated
emission.
When these photons again interacted with the electrons
in the Meta stable state, they forces two Meta stable state
electrons to fall back to the ground state. As a result, four
photons are emitted. Likewise, a large number of photons
are emitted. As a result, millions of photons are emitted by
using small number of photons. This continuing action is
called lasing action.
Lasing Action involves five steps.
1. Pumping
2. Population inversion
3. Spontaneous Emission
4. Amplification
5. Oscillations.

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Ruby Laser:
Ruby Laser is a solid state pulsed, three level laser constructed by Maiman in the year 1960. Basically,
ruby crystal is aluminum oxide [Al2O3] doped with 0.05 to 0.5% of chromium atoms. These chromium
atoms serve as activators. Due to presence of 0.05% of chromium, the ruby crystal appears in pink color.
The ruby crystal is placed along the axis of a helical xenon or krypton flash lamp of high intensity.
 Active Material: Ruby crystal in the form of a rod [Al2O3+Cr2O3]
 Resonating Cavity: A fully reflecting surface at the left end of the ruby crystal and partially
reflecting end at the right side of the ruby crystal are to be arranged.
For this, both the ends of the ruby rod are highly polished and painted with silver such that one end
is fully reflecting and the other end is partially reflecting. Both the reflecting surfaces are optically
flat and are exactly parallel to each other.
 Pumping System: Optical Pumping
For this, a helical Xenon flash lamp with a power supply to pump Cr+3 ions to higher levels is used.

Construction:
Ruby (Al2O3+Cr2O3) is a crystal of Aluminum oxide in which some of Al+3 ions are replaced by Cr
+3
ions. When the doping concentration of Cr+3 is about 0.05%, the color of the rod becomes pink.
The active medium in ruby rod is Cr+3ions. In ruby laser a rod of 4cm long and 5mm diameter is
used and the ends of the rod are highly polished. Both ends are silvered such that one end is fully
reflecting and the other end is partially reflecting.
The ruby rod is surrounded by helical xenon flash lamp tube which provides the optical pumping to
raise the Chromium ions to upper energy level (rather energy band). The xenon flash lamp tube
which emits intense pulses lasts only few milliseconds and the tube consumes several thousands of
joules of energy. Only a part of this energy is used in pumping Chromium ions while the rest goes as
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heat to the apparatus which should be cooled with cooling arrangements as shown in fig.2.5. The
energy level diagram of ruby laser is shown in fig.2.6

Working:

1 Ruby crystal is made up of aluminum oxide as host lattice with small percentage of Chromium ions
replacing aluminum ions in the crystal chromium acts as dopant. A dopant actually produces lasing
action while the host material sustains this action.
2 The pumping source for ruby material is xenon flash lamp which will be operated by some external
power supply. Chromium ions will respond to this flash light having wavelength of 5600A0.
3 The Cr +3ions are excited to energy level E3 from E1 the population in E3 increases. Chromium ions
stay here for a very short time of the order of 10-8 seconds then they drop to the level E2 which is
metastable state of life time 10-3s.
4 Here the level E3 is a band and the transition from E3 to E2 is non-radioactive in nature. During this
process heat is given to crystal lattice. Hence cooling the rod is an essential feature in this method.
5 The life time in mete stable state is 105 times greater than the lifetime in E3. As the life of the state E2
is much longer, the number of ions in this state goes on increasing while in the ground state E1 goes on
decreasing. Thus, population inversion is achieved between E2 and E1.
6 When an excited ion passes spontaneously from E2 to E1, it emits a photon of wave length 6943A0.
This photon travels through the rod and if it is moving parallel to the axis of the crystal, is reflected
back and forth by the silvered ends until it stimulates an excited ion in E2 and causes it to emit fresh
photon in phase with the earlier photon. This stimulated transition triggers the laser transition.
7 This process is repeated again and again, thus photons get multiplied. When the photon beam becomes
sufficiently intense, such that part of it emerges through the partially silvered end of the crystal.

Drawbacks of ruby laser:

1. The laser requires high pumping power to achieve population inversion.
2. It is a pulsed laser.

Applications of Ruby Laser:

 Distance measurement using pulse echo technique
 Pulsed holography
 For drilling high quality holes.
 In military, used as target designators and range finders.
 Used in general research applications such as plasma production and fluorescence spectroscopy.

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He-Ne Laser:
 The main disadvantage in ruby laser is that output is not continuous though it is very intense, so, in
order have continuous laser output gas lasers are used.
 He-Ne laser was fabricated by Ali Javan and others in Bell telephone laboratory in 1961.
 The gas lasers use dielectric discharge as an efficient method of producing population inversion.
Construction:
 The He-Ne consists of discharge tube of length 80 cm and diameter of 1 cm.
Active Material:
 The tube is filled with mixture of Neon & Helium; the ratio of the mixture is 10:1.
 The output Power from these lasers depends upon the length of the discharge tube and Pressure of
gas mixture { He-1 mm of Hg, Ne- 0.1 mm of Hg}
 The gas mixture of Helium and neon forms the lasing medium and this mixture is enclosed between
a set of Parallel mirrors forming a resonating cavity, one mirror is completely reflecting and other
is partially reflecting.
 The Pumping process used in this
laser is electric discharge
 There is a disadvantage in using
the mirrors internally, as they are
usually get eroded by gas discharge
and has to be replaced regularly. When mirrors are kept externally rather than internally, the ends of
discharge tube cause an additional loss due to reflections.
 Thus, one will have two mirrors at ends of discharge tube which are at Brewster's angle (
). The output laser beam is polarized.
Working

When a discharge is passed through the gaseous mixture, electrons are accelerated down the tube.
These accelerated electrons collide with the helium atoms and excite them to higher energy levels. The
different energy levels of Helium and Neon atoms are shown in fig. The helium atoms are excited to the
levels F2 and F3 these levels happen to be metastable energy states.
Energy levels and hence Helium atoms exited levels spend sufficiently large amount of time before
getting de excited. As shown in the fig, some of the excited states of neon can correspond approximately to
the same energy of excited levels F2 and F3. Thus, when Helium atoms in level F2 and F3 collide with Neon
atoms in the ground level E1, an energy exchange takes place. This results in the excitation of Neon atoms
to the levels E4 and E6and de excitation of Helium atoms to the ground level (F1). Because of long life
times of the atoms in levels F2 and F3, this process of energy transfer has a high probability. Thus the
discharge through the gas mixture continuously populates the neon atoms in the excited energy levels E4
and E6. This helps to create a state of population inversion between the levels E4 (E6) to the lower energy
level (E3 and E5).
The various transitions E6→E5, E4→E3, E6→E3 leads to the emission of wave lengths 3.39mm, 1.15
um and 6328 A0. Specific frequency selection may be obtained by employing filters.
The excited Neon atoms drop down from the level E3 to the E2 by spontaneously emitting a photon
around wavelength 6000A0. The pressures of the two gases in the mixture are so chosen that there is an
effective transfer of energy from the Helium to the Neon atoms. Since the level E2 is a meta stable state,
there is a finite probability of the excitation of Neon, atoms from E2 to E3 leading to population inversion,
when a narrow tube is used, the neon atoms in the level E2 collide with the walls of the tube and get excited
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to the level E1. The transition from E5 to E3 may be non-radioactive. The typical power outputs of He-Ne
laser lie between 1 and 50 mw of continuous wave for inputs of 5-10W.

Applications:

 Very widely used laboratories for all interferometric experiments.

 Used in metrology in surveying, measuring etc.,
 He-Ne scanners have also been used for optical character recognition.
 Used in 3D recording of objects, called holography.

Applications of Lasers
Lasers find applications in various fields. They are described below.

1. In Communications :
Lasers are used in optical fiber communications. In optical fiber communications, lasers are used as light
source to transmit audio, video signals and data to long distances without attention and distortion.
The narrow angular spread of laser beam can be used for communication between earth and moon or to
satellites.
As laser radiation is not absorbed by water, so laser beam can be used in under water (inside sea)
communication networks.
2. Industrial Applications
Lasers are used in metal cutting, welding, surface treatment and hole drilling. Using lasers cutting can be
obtained to any desired shape and the curved surface is very smooth.
Welding has been carried by using laser beam.
Dissimilar metals can be welded and micro welding is done with great case.
Lasers beam is used in selective heat treatment for tempering the desired parts in automobile industry
Lasers are widely used in electronic industry in trimming the components of ICs
3. Medical Applications
 Lasers are used in medicine to improve precision work like surgery. Brain surgery is an example of
precision surgery Birthmarks, warts and discoloring of the skin can easily be removed with an
unfocussed laser. The operations are quick and heal quickly and, best of all, they are less painful
than ordinary surgery performed with a scalpel.
 Cosmetic surgery (removing tattoos, scars, stretch marks, sunspots, wrinkles, birthmarks and hairs).
 Laser types used in dermatology include ruby(694nm),alexandrite(755nm),pulsed diode
array(810nm), Nd:YAG(1064nm), HO:YAG(2090nm), and Er:YAG(2940nm)
 Eye surgery and refracting surgery.
 Soft tissue surgery: Co2Er:YAGlaser.

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 Laser scalpel (general surgery, gynecological, urology, laparoscopic).

 Dental procedures.
 Photo bio modulation (i.e. laser therapy)
 ―No-touch‖ removal of tumors, especially of the brain and spinal cord.
 In dentistry for caries removal, endodontic/periodontic, procedures, tooth whitening, and oral
surgery.
4. Military Applications
The various military applications are:
Death rays: By focusing high energetic laser beam for few seconds to aircraft, missile, etc can be
destroyed. So, these rays are called death rays or war weapons.
Laser gun: The vital part of energy body can be evaporated at short range by focusing highly convergent
beam from a laser gun.
LIDAR (Light detecting and ranging):In place of RADAR, we can use LIDAR to estimate the size and
shape of distant objects or war weapons. The differences between RADAR and LIDAR are that, in case of
RADAR, Radio waves are used where as incase of LIDAR light is used.
5. In Computers:
By using lasers a large amount of information or data can be stored in CD-ROM or their storage capacity
can be increased. Lasers are also used in computer printers.
6. In Thermonuclear fusion:
To initiate nuclear fusion reaction, very high temperature and pressure is required. This can be created by
concentrating large amount of laser energy in a small volume. In the fusion of deuterium and tritium,
irradiation with a high energy laser beam pulse of 1 nano second duration develops a temperature of 10170c,
this temperature is sufficient to initiate nuclear fusion reaction.
7. In Scientific Research:
 In scientific, lasers are used in many ways including
 A wide variety of interferometric techniques.
 Raman spectroscopy.
 Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy.
 Atmospheric remote sensing.
 Investigating non-linear optics phenomena
 Holographic techniques employing lasers also contribute to a number of measurement techniques.
 Laser (LADAR) technology has application in geology, seismology, remote sensing and
atmospheric physics.
 Lasers have been used abroad spacecraft such as in the cassini-huygens mission.
 In astronomy lasers have been used to create artificial laser guide stars, used as reference objects for
adaptive optics telescope.

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 FIBER OPTICS

 Fiber optics is a branch of physics based on the transmission of light through transparent filters of glass or
plastic.
 These optical fibers can carry light over distances ranging from few meters to hundreds of kilometers.
 John Tyndall, a British Physicist demonstrated in 1870, that light can be guided along curved stream of
water, employing the phenomena of total internal reflection.
 Optical frequencies are extremely large (~1015 Hz) compared to radio and micro waves. A light beam acting
as a carrier wave is capable of carrying more information than radio and microwaves.
 In order to have efficient and dependable communication system, one would require a guiding medium in
which the information carrying light waves would be transmitted.
 Te guiding medium is the optical fiber which is hair thin and guides the light beam from one place to
another.
 The fibers fabricated with recent developed technology are characterized by extremely low losses ~ 0.2
dB/Km and possible send 4.5 lakh voice channels.
 Discovery of gas and solid state lasers gave momentum for the development of fiber optic communication
technology.
 Commercial communication systems based on optical fiber cables made their appearance by 1977.
 The advantages of fiber optics make them to be used in fiber optical communication.
 Some of them are:
 Low attenuation losses
 High information carrying capacity.
 Small diameter of the individual fiber channel.
 Low weight of high capacity channel.
 Material cost in bulk is low.
 High security for tapping.
 No dangers of short circuits.

Structure, Principle of Optical Fiber:-

 Optical fiber is a cylinder of transparent dielectric medium designed to guide visible and infrared light, over
long distances.
 Optical fibers work on the principle of total internal reflection.
 When a ray of light travels from a denser
medium into a rarer medium and if the angle of
incidence is greater than the critical angle then
the light gets totally reflected.
 Optical fiber is a very thin and flexible medium
having a cylindrical shape.
 The various parts are :-
i) Core: - A typical cylindrical glass material
of diameter 50 µm surrounded by a clad.
ii) Clad: - A glass material of slightly lower
refractive index than core.
iii) Silicon Coating: - It is provided between
clad and buffer jacket in order to improve the
quality of transmission of light.
iv) Buffer jacket: - It is covered over silicon
coating which is made up of plastic material
and protects from moisture and abrasion.

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v) Strength members: - This layer is arranged over the buffer jacket to provide necessary toughness and
tensile strength to the fiber.
vi) Outer jacket: - Finally a black polyurethane outer jacket to avoid damages during hard pulling, bending,
stretching or rolling of the fiber in the real field.
 When a light ray passes from an optically denser medium into an optically rarer medium, the refracted ray
bends away from normal.
 When the angle of incidence is increased,
angle of refraction also increases and a stage
is reached when the refracted ray just grazes
the surface of seperation of denser and rarer
i.e., core and clad respectively.
 At this position the angle of refraction is 900.
 This angle of incidence in the denser medium
is called the critical angle (θc) of the denser
medium with respect to rarer medium and it is
shown below.
 If the angle of incidence is further increased

then the ray is totally reflected.

 Here refractive index of core and clad
materials are n1 & n2.
 When a light ray, travelling from
optically denser medium to optically
rarer medium, if it is incident at an
angle greater than the critical angle for
the two media, the ray is totally
reflected back into the same medium by
obeying laws of reflection. This
phenomenon is called total internal
reflection.
 According to law of refraction
n1 sinθ1 = n2sinθ2
If θ1 = θC => θ2 = 900
So, n1sinθC = n2sin900
=> sinθC = n2/n1 => θC = sin-1(n2/n1)
 As there is no loss of light energy during reflection optical fibers are designed to guide light wave over long
distances.

Acceptance angle and acceptance cone: -

 When light beam is launched into a fiber at its end by using a focusing lens, the entire light may not pass
through the fiber.
 Only the rays which make angle of incidence greater than critical angle will undergo total internal reflection.
 The other rays are refracted into the cladding material and are lost.
 So, we have to know at what angle called acceptance angle we have to launch the beam. The maximum
angle of launch is called ‗acceptance angle‘.
 Suppose that the light is launched from the medium of refractive index n0 (n0= 1 for air) into the core of
refractive index n1.
 αi is the angle of incidence and angle of refraction is αr .

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 After refraction the ray proceeds with angle of refraction and undergoes total internal reflection.
 From triangle ABC αr + θ + 900 = 1800 so, αr + θ = 900 => αr = 900 – θ;
 From Snell‘s law we have
We have n0 sin αi = n1sinαr
=> n0 sin αi = n1sin(90-θ) => n0 sin αi = n1cosθ
 If θ is less than critical angle θC, the ray
will be lost by refraction.
 When θ = θC ; αI = αm = maximum α
value
 Therefore, sin αm = cosθC
-1
And we have θC = sin (n2/n1)

So, cosθC = √ =√
Therefore,

n0 sin αm = n1 √

so, n0 sin αm = √ if n0 = 1 {
medium is air}

Sin αm = √

 This maximum angle αm is called acceptance

angle (or) the acceptance cone half angle of the
fiber.
 The acceptance angle may be defined as the
maximum angle that a light ray can have with
axis of the fiber and propagate through the
fiber.
 Rotating acceptance angle about the fiber axis describes acceptance cone of the fiber.

Numerical Aperture: -

 The numerical aperture defines the acceptance angle more clearly.

 The sine of acceptance angle is called numerical aperture.
 The value of Numerical Aperture, NA is

NA = Sin αm = √ =√ =√ Where = is fractional

difference in Refractive indices, n1 and n2 are refractive indices of core and clad respectively.
As n1 ~ n2 we can take n1 + n2 = 2n1 so, NA = n1√

 Numerical aperture is a measure of the amount of light that can be occupied by a fiber.
 NA values ranges from 0.1 to 0.5.

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Types of Optical Fibers: -

 Depending on the relation between refractive indices of core and clad they are divided into two types. Step
index fiber and graded index fiber.
 Additional to these there are also single mode fiber and multimode fiber.
Step-index fiber: -
 In the step-index fiber, the
refractive index of core is
uniform and undergoes an
abrupt change (or step) at
the cladding boundary.
 In the step-index fiber,
there is a core of constant
refractive index n1 and a
cladding of slightly less
refractive index n2.
 The refractive index profile may be defined as
n(r)= { }

 The step-index fibers have a core radius ‗a‘ and n2 = n1( 1-∆) (or) ∆
 A step-index fiber may be single or multimode fiber.
 For short distance communication single mode fiber is used.
Transmission of signal in step-index fiber: -
 Generally the signal sent through the fiber is in
digital form i.e., in the form of pulses
representing 0‘s and 1‘s.
 Let us consider the propagation of one such
pulse through the multimode step index fiber.
 The same pulsed signal travels in different
paths.
 If we see the diagram it is clear that ray ‗1‘
travels shorter distance and ray ‗3‘ travels
longer distance.
 Hence the three rays reach the received end at different times. Therefore, the pulsed signal received at the
other end gets broadened. This is called intermodal dispersion.
 This difficulty is over come in grad fiber.
 The ray propagating along the axis i.e., ray 1 is called HE11 mode and is the fastest mode and takes minimum
time to reach the receiving end.

Graded-index fiber: -
 In graded-index fiber, the core refractive index varies as a
function of radial distance from the centre of the fiber.
 In the graded index fiber the core refractive index decreases

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continuously with increasing radial distance ‗r‘ from the centre of the fiber, but is generally constant in the
cladding.
 The most commonly used construction for the RI variation in the core is given by
[ ⁄ ]
n(r)= { }
[ ]
 Where n1 = RI of the core at the centre
a = radius of core
α = Grading profile of RI in the core material
∆= = fractional total change of the core RI
α=2
 ‗α‘ defines the shape of the index profile and it is a
dimension less parameter.
 The input and output pulses for GI fiber are shown
below. The Graded-index fiber is multimode fiber.
 These fibers have several modes or paths of
transmission through the core, but they are much
more orderly and predictable.
 The typical paths of GI fiber are shown in figure.

Transmission of signal in GI fiber: -

 Let us now consider signal pulses travelling

through graded index fiber in two different
trajectories represented by 1 and 2 as shown below.
 The pulse represented by 1, travelling along the
axis of the fiber, though travels along shorter route
it travels through a medium of higher refractive
index.
 The other pulse represented by 2, travelling away
from axis and undergoes reflection.

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 The path of this ray is sinusoidal for the

meridional rays which are nearly parallel to
the fiber axis in which paraxial
approximation is used.
 Though it travels longer distance, it travels
along a trajectory possessing relatively less
refractive index and hence both pulses reach
the other end simultaneously.
 So, the problem of intermodal dispersion is reduced to minimum.
 When a step-index fiber and parabolic index (α = 2) fiber having same core diameter and same total
variation of RI are illuminated by a source excites all modes equally, then the graded index fiber will
propagate only half the total power carried by step-index fiber.
 Simply, if NSI & NGI be the number of modes in step index fiber and graded-index fiber then NGI =
Modes: -
 Based on the number of modes propagating through a fiber there are single and multi-modes.
 Mode is mathematical concept of describing, the nature of propagation of EM waves in a wave guide.
 In metallic modes there are only two modes TE (transverse electric) for which Ez = 0, and if Hz = 0 called as
TM (transverse magnetic mode).
 They are explained using quantum numbers l & m. so, TElm or TMml.
 Fibers have three modes, additional to above they have hybrid modes HE or EH modes.
Comparison between Step-index fiber & Grad-index fiber: -
S.N Step-index fiber S. Grad-index fiber
O NO

1 The RI of the core is uniform throughout and 1 The RI of the core is made to vary in parabolic
undergoes sudden change at cladding boundary. manner such that the maximum RI is present at
the centre of core.

2 The diameter of core is about 100 µm for 2 The diameter of the core is about 50µm in case
multimode fiber and 10µm for single mode fiber. of multimode fiber.

3 The light rays propagating through it are in the 3 The light rays propagating are mainly skew
form of meridional rays. rays, which follow a helical path.
4 Signal distortion is more in multimode step-index 4 Signal distortion is low because of self-
fiber since the rays reflected at high angles travel a focusing effect. Here light rays travel at
greater distance than the rays reflected at low different speeds in different paths of the fiber
angles. because the RI varies throughout the fiber.
5 Bandwidth of fiber is about 50MHz Km for 5 Bandwidth of fiber is from 200 MHz Km to
multimode step-index fibers, but for single mode, 600 MHz Km even though theoretically it has
the bandwidth is more than 1000 MHz Km. infinite bandwidth.
6 Attenuation is more for multimode step index fiber 6 Attenuation is less.
but for single mode SI fiber it is very less.
7 Numerical aperture is more for multimode SI fiber 7 Numerical Aperture is less.
but for single mode it is very less.

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Differences between single and multimode fiber: -

Single mode fiber [Link] Multimode fiber

[Link]

1 In single mode fiber only one mode 1 Multimode fiber allows a large number of
(HE11) can propagate through the fiber. paths or modes for the light rays travelling
through it.

2 The condition for single mode operation 2 Here V > 2.405

is given by V-number, given as
V = 2π/λ n1 a√ : V≤ 2.405
3 The single mode fiber has smaller core 3 In multimode fiber the core diameter and
diameter < 10 µm and the difference the relative refractive index difference are
between RI of core and cladding is very more than the single mode fiber.
small.
4 There is no dispersion. 4 There will be some dispersion.

5 The single mode fibers are more suitable 5 These fibers are used in local area
for long distance communication. networks.

6 Launching of light into single mode fiber 6 Launching of light into fiber and splicing
and splicing of two fibers is very of two fibers is easy.
difficult.
7 Fabrication is very difficult and fiber is 7 Fabrication is easy and the fiber is
costly. cheaper.

Attenuation in Optical fibers: -

The main specification of a fiber optic cable is its attenuation.

Different mechanisms are responsible for the signal attenuation in the fiber.
The attenuation of the signal is measured in Decibel/KM.
Signal attenuation is defined as ratio of input optical power Pi into fiber to the output received optical power
PO from the fiber.
The attenuation coefficient of the signal per unit length is given as α = dB/Km

Advantages of Fiber Optic communication: -

 Enormous Bandwidth: -
In the coaxial cable transmission the bandwidth is upto around 500 MHz only whereas in fiber optical
communication it is as large as 105 GHz. Thus, the information carrying capacity of optical fiber system
is far superior to the best copper cable system.
 Electrical isolation: -
Since fiber optic materials are insulators, unlike their metallic counter parts, they do not exhibit earth
loop and interface problems. Hence communication through fiber even in electrically hazardous
environment do not cause any fear of spark hazards.
 Immunity to interference and cross talk: -

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Since optical fibers are dielectric waveguides, they are free from any electromagnetic interference (EMI)
and radiofrequency interference (RFI). Hence fiber cables do not require special shielding from EMI.
Cross talk is very negligible.
 Signal security: -
Unlike the situation with copper cables a transmitted optical signal cannot be drawn from a fiber without
tampering it such an attempt will affect the original signal and hence can be easily detected.
 Small size and weight: -
Since fibers are very small in diameter the space occupied by the fiber cable is negligibly small
compared to metallic cables. Optical cables are light in weight; these merits make them more useful in
aircrafts and satellites.
 Low transmissions loss: -
Since the loss in fibers is as low as 0.2 dB/Km, transmission loss is very less compared to best copper
conductors. Hence for long distance communication fibers are preferred. Number of repeaters required is
reduced.
 Ruggedness and flexibility: -
Fiber cable structures are flexible, compact and extremely rugged.
 Low cost: -
Since fibers are made of silica which is available in abundance, optical fibers are less expensive.

Optical fiber communication system: -

Fiber optic communication system:

Fiber opptics essentially deals of with the communication(including voice signals,video signals or
digital data) by transmission of light through optical fibers. Optical fiber communication system
essentially consists of three parts:(a)transmitter (b) optical fiber and (c) [Link] transmitter
includes modulator, encoder, light source, drive circuits and couplers. The receiver includes
amplifier and decoder,binary electrical signal and light decoder.

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1. Encoder:
It is an electric circuit where in the information is encoded into binary sequences of zeros and one.
2. Transmitter:
An electric signal is applied to the optical transmitter. The optical transmitter consists of driver
circuit and the light source.
Driver circuit drives the light source.
Light source converts electrical signal to optical signal.
3. Optical fiber:
The optical fiber acts as a wave guide and transmits the optical pulses towards the receiver, by the
principle of total internal reflection.
4. Receiver:
The light detector receives the optical pulses and converts them into electrical pulses. These signals
are amplified by the amplifier.
5. Decoder:
The amplified signals are decoded by the decoder.

Applications of optical fibers:

Optical Fibres uses in Medical industry

Because of the extremely thin and flexible nature, it used in various instruments to view internal
body parts by inserting into hollow spaces in the body. It is used as lasers during surgeries,
endoscopy, microscopy and biomedical research.

Optical Fibres used in Communication

In the communication system, telecommunication has major uses of optical fibre cables for
transmitting and receiving purposes. It is used in various networking fields and even increases the
speed and accuracy of the transmission data. Compared to copper wires, fibre optics cables are
lighter, more flexible and carry more data.
Optical Fibres used in Defense Purpose
Fibre optics are used for data transmission in high-level data security fields of military and
aerospace applications. These are used in wirings in aircraft, hydrophones for SONARs and
Seismic applications.
Optical Fibres are used in Industries
These fibres are used for imaging in hard to reach places such as they are used for safety measures
and lighting purposes in automobiles both in the interior and exterior. They transmit information in
lightning speed and are used in airbags and traction control. They are also used for research and
testing purposes in industries.
Optical Fibres used for Broadcasting

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These cables are used to transmit high definition television signals which have greater bandwidth
and speed. Optical Fibre is cheaper compared to the same quantity of copper wires. Broadcasting
companies use optical fibres for wiring HDTV, CATV, video-on-demand and many applications.
Uses of Optical Fibre for Lightening and Decorations
By now, we got a fair idea of what is optical fibre and it also gives an attractive, economical and
easy way to illuminate the area and that is why it is widely used in decorations and Christmas trees.
Optical Fibres used in Mechanical Inspections
On-site inspection engineers use optical fibres to detect damages and faults which are at hard to reach
places. Even plumbers use optical fibres for inspection of pipes.

{Not in Syllabus

Absorption losses: -

Absorption is basically a material property.

Absorption is a major cause of signal loss in an optical
fiber.
Absorption is defined as the portion of attenuation
resulting from the conversion of optical power into
another energy form, such as heat.
Absorption in optical fibers is explained by three factors.
o Absorption by atomic defects in the fiber
material
o Extrinsic absorption by impurity atoms in the
fiber material.
o Intrinsic absorption by the basic constituent
atoms of the fiber material.
(i) Absorption by atomic defects: -
Atomic defects such as vacancies, imperfections of the atomic structure of the fiber material and cluster of
atoms produce a small absorption loss. By careful fabrication these atomic defects can be reduced.
(ii) Extrinsic absorption by impurity atoms: -
Impurity absorption results from transition metal ions such as iron, chromium, copper, manganese and
Nickel.
Impurity absorption is more for fibers drawn from direct melt technique.
The transition metal ions produce loss at λ = 0.8 µm.
Impurity absorption also results from OH- ions. The OH- ions which are present in the material due to
trapping of minute quantities of
water molecules during
manufacturing absorb energy.
(iii) Intrinsic absorption: -
Intrinsic absorption is associated
with basic fiber material (SiO2). In
the case of Silica fibers, tail of
infrared absorption by Si-O coupling
occurs at wavelengths higher than
1.5 µm.
Intrinsic absorption also results from
the electronic absorption bands in
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the ultra violet region and from atomic vibration bands in the near infrared region.
Ultraviolet absorption decays exponentially with increasing wavelength.

Scattering losses: -

(i) Linear Scattering: -

Linear scattering transfers linearly the optical power in one propagating mode to a different mode.
This linear scattering process may cause the attenuation of operating mode power by means by transferring
power to leaky mode or radiation mode which will not continue to propagate within the core of fiber but is
radiated from the fiber.
Rayleigh scattering: Rayleigh scattering loss is the dominant loss mechanism in the UV region. Its tail
extends upto infrared region.
Rayleigh scattering loss is inversely proportional to the fourth power of wavelength. It arises from the
microscopic in-homogeneities present in the material of the fiber.
The in-homogeneities may arise from the density fluctuations, RI fluctuations and compositional variations.
The transmission loss due to Rayleigh scattering is α = exp (-αscat L).
This occurs for low wavelengths.
Mie Scattering: - Mie scattering is a linear scattering which arises from the in-homogeneities which are
comparable in size to the guided wavelength.
Further, it is also due to the imperfect cylindrical structure of the waveguide; irregularities in the core-
cladding interface, core-cladding RI difference along the fiber and density fluctuations.

(ii) Non-linear scattering losses: -

When we use high optical power levels the non-linear scattering losses occur. This scattering causes the
optical power in one mode to the other mode at different frequency in either forward or backward direction.
These are observed in single mode fiber at high optical power densities.
Stimulated Brillouin scattering: - stimulated Brillouin scattering is defined as the modulation of light
through molecular vibrations within the fiber.
The scattered light contains a upper and lower side bands along with the incident light frequency. The
frequency shift varies with the scattering angle.
Stimulated Raman scattering: - Here the scattering light consists of a scattered photon and a high
frequency optical phonon. Further, stimulated Raman scattering occurs in both forward and backward
directions in the optical fiber.
Generally the scattering losses are maximum in multimode fibers than in the single mode fibers due to their
large diameter and compositional vibrations.

Bending losses: -

Whenever the optical fiber contains bends, then the bends produce radiative losses. There are two types of
bending losses.
Macroscopic bending losses: - these occur when the radius of curvature of bend is greater than fiber
diameter. This situation arises when a cable turns round a corner.
Microscopic bending losses: - these occur due to
bends in the fiber axis. This situation arises when
the fibers are incorporated into cables.
Macrobending losses are minimized by (i) fibers
with small relative refractive index and (ii)
operating at the highest wavelength possible.
Microbends are due to small scale fluctuations in
the radius of curvature of the fiber axis.
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Fluctuations in the radius of curvature either by non-uniformities in the manufacturing of fiber or by non-
uniform lateral pressures created during the cabling of the fiber.
These are minimized by careful cabling.

Dispersion: -

There are two different types of dispersions, intramodal & intermodal dispersions.
Ecah type of dispersion mechanism leads to pulse spreading. As a pulse spreads energy is overlapped.
The spreading of the optical pulse as it travels along the fiber limits the capacity of the fiber.
Intramodal dispersion: - Intramodal, chromatic, dispersion mainly depends primarily on fiber materials.
The intramodal dispersion may be a material dispersion or waveguide dispersion.
Intramodal dispersion occurs because different colours of light travel through different materials and
different waveguide structures at different speeds.
Material dispersion occurs because the spreading of light pulse is dependent on the wavelengths interaction
with RI of the fiber core.
Material dispersion is a function of the source spectral width.
Material dispersion is less at longer wavelengths.
Waveguide dispersion occurs because the mode propagtion constant is a function of the size of the fiber‘s
core relative to wavelength of operation.
In multimode fibers, waveguide dispersion and material dispersion are basically separate properties, where
as in single mode fiber they are inter-related.
Intermodal dispersion: -This occurs because each mode travels a different distance over the same time
span.
The modes of a light pulse that enter the fiber at one time exit the fiber at different times.
This condition causes the light to spread.

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