UNIT II
SIGNAL
DEGRADATION IN
OPTICAL FIBERS
Signal Degradation in the Optical Fiber
Signal Attenuation
It determines the maximum unamplified or repeaterless
distance between transmitter and receiver.
Signal Distortion
•Causes optical pulses broaden.
•Overlapping with neighboring pulses, creating errors in the
receiver output.
•It limits the information carrying capacity of a fiber.
Attenuation Units
If P(0) is the optical power in a fiber at the origin (at
z=0), then the power P(z) at a distance z
P(z) =P (0) e -αpz
αp = (1/z) ln [P(0) / P(z)] Fiber attenuation coefficient
Attenuation coefficient in units of decibels per kilometer,
denoted by dB/ Km, then
α(dB/km) = (10/z) ln [P(0) / P(z)]
Attenuation
Scattering Radiative
Absorption Losses losses/ Bending
losses
Extrinsic
Intrinsic Atomic
(Impurity
Absorption Defects
atoms)
Absorption Absorption Inhomogeneities Compositional
in in Microscopic Macroscopic
or defects fluctuations
Infrared Ultraviolet bends bends
in fiber in material
region region
Attenuation
The Basic attenuation mechanisms in a fiber:
1. Absorption:
It is related to the fiber material.
2. Scattering:
It is associated both with the fiber material
and with the structural imperfections in the
optical waveguide.
3. Radiative losses/ Bending losses:
It originates from perturbation (both
microscopic and macroscopic) of the fiber
geometry.
Absorption
Extrinsic Intrinsic
Atomic Defects
(Impurity atoms) Absorption
Absorption in Absorption in
Ultraviolet region Infrared region
Absorption
1. Absorption by atomic defects
Atomic defects are imperfections in the atomic structure of
the fiber material.
Examples:
•Missing molecules
•High density clusters of atom groups
•Oxygen defects in the glass structure.
•Absorption losses arising from these defects are negligible
compared with intrinsic and impurity absorption.
•Can be significant if the fiber is exposed to ionization radiations.
Absorption
2. Extrinsic absorption by impurity atoms
The dominant absorption factor in silica fibers is the presence of
minute quantities of impurities in the fiber material.
•These impurities include
•OH- (water) ions dissolved in the glass.
•Transition metal ions, such as iron, copper, chromium
and vanadium
Origin :
OH ion impurities in a fiber preform results mainly from the
oxyhydrogen flame used in the hydrolysis reaction of the SiCl4,
GeCl4 and POCl3 starting materials.
Absorption
3. Intrinsic absorption by the basic constituent atoms
Intrinsic absorption is associated with the basic fiber material
(e.g pure SiO2).
Intrinsic absorption results from:
1. Electronic absorption bands in the ultraviolet region
2. Atomic vibration bands in the near infrared region
Absorption
1. Electronic absorption (EA) occurs when a photon interacts
with an electron in the valance band and excites it to a
higher energy level. The electronic absorption is associated
with the band gap of the material. The UV edge of EA follow
the empirical formula
uv Ce E / Eo
Ultraviolet absorption decays exponentially with increasing
wavelength and is small compared with scattering loss in the
near infrared region. UV loss in dB/km at any as a function of
mole fraction x of GeO2 is
154.2 x 4.63
uv 10 2 exp
46.6 x 60
2. The inherent infrared absorption is associated with
the vibration frequency of chemical bond between the
atoms of which the fiber is composed.
An interaction between the vibrating bond and the
electromagnetic field of the optical signal results in a transfer
of energy from the field to the bond and thereby giving rise to
absorption.
This absorption is quite strong because of many bonds present
in the fiber. Example: GeO2-SiO2.
48.48
IR 7.8110 exp
11
Scattering Losses
Scattering losses in glass arise from microscopic variation in the
material density from:
1. Compositional fluctuations
2. Inhomogeneities or defects occurring during fiber manufacture
These two effects give rise to refractive index variation, occurring
within the glass over distances that are small compared with the
wavelength.
These index variation case Rayleigh-type scattering of the light
and inversely proportional to wavelength.
It decreases dramatically with increasing wavelength
Scattering Losses
Rayleigh scattering in an optical fiber
Radiative losses / Bending Losses
Radiative losses occur whenever an optical fiber undergoes a
bend of finite radius of curvature.
Fiber can be subject to two types of bends:
1. Macroscopic bends
2. Microscopic bends
Macrobending: Light lost from the optical core due to macroscopic
effects such as tight bends being induced in the fiber itself.
Microbending. Light lost from the optical core due to microscopic
effects resulting from deformation and damage to the core
cladding interface.
Radiative losses / Bending Losses
• For the slight bends losses are unobservable
• By decreasing radius of curvature we will come to the critical value after
which these losses increase drastically, shown as xc in the fig.
• As we know that the electric/magnetic field have a tail in the cladding
region so by bending the cable we come to the extent where cladding field
should move faster to keep up with the core field.
• As this is not possible so the energy in that region radiates away
• Radiation losses depend on the value of xc and radius of curvature R
• As the lower order modes remain close to the core axis and the higher
modes are closer to the cladding so the higher modes will radiate out of the
fiber first.
Radiative losses / Bending Losses
Macrobending losses are normally produced by poor handling of
fiber .
Poor reeling and mishandling during installation can create severe
bending of the fiber resulting in small but important localized losses
Power loss in a curved fiber
Radiative losses / Bending Losses
Microbending losses:
It is the radiation loss in optical waveguide results from mode
coupling by random microbends.
Fiber curvature causes repetitive coupling of energy between the
guided modes and the leaky or nonguided modes in the fiber.
Microbending is a much more critical feature and can be a major
cause of cabling attenuation.
These stresses are very difficult to define, however, they can be
caused by:
• nonuniformities in the manufacturing of the fiber
• nonuniform lateral pressures during cabling
• Low temperatures
• High pressures
Microbending losses
Minimizing microbending losses:
A compressible jacket extruded over a fiber reduces microbending resulting from
external forces.
Macrobending due to poor reeling
Minimum safe bend radius —shown full size
Bends are shown full size — and may have caused damage to the fiber
Signal Distortion in Fibers
Optical signal weakens from attenuation mechanisms and
broadens due to distortion effects.
Eventually these two factors will cause
neighboring pulses to overlap.
After a certain amount of overlap occurs, the
receiver can no longer distinguish the
individual adjacent pulses and error arise
when interpreting the received signal.
Pulse broadening and attenuation
Dispersion
The basic need is to match the output waveform to
the input waveform as closely as possible.
Attenuation only reduces the amplitude of the output
waveform which does not alter the shape of the
signal.
Dispersion distorts both pulse and analog modulation
signals.
Dispersion
Dispersion results when some components of
the input signal spend more time traversing the
fiber than other components.
In a pulse modulated system, this causes the
received pulse to be spread out over a longer
period.
It is noted that actually no power is lost to
dispersion, the spreading effect reduces the
peak power.
Dispersion
Dispersion
Pulse dispersion is usually specified in terms of
“Nanoseconds-per-kilometer”.
The difference in width of an input pulse with the
width of the same pulse at the output, measured in
time, is the dispersion characteristic for that piece of
fiber.
Dispersion
Dispersion of optical energy within an optical fiber
falls into following categories:
Intermodal Delay or Modal Delay)
Intramodal Dispertion or Chromatic Dispersion
Material Dispertion
Waveguide Dispertion
Polarization –Mode Dispersion
Signal Distortion/
Dispersion
Intermodal Delay/ Intramodal Dispersion/ Polarization-mode
Modal Delay Chromatic Dispersion Dispersion
Material Waveguide
Dispersion Dispersion
Dispersion
Intermodal delay/ modal delay
Intermodal distortion or modal delay appears only in multimode
fibers.
This signal distortion mechanism is a result of each mode having a
different value of the group velocity at a single frequency.
The amount of spreading that occurs in a fiber is a function of the
number of modes propagated by the fiber and length of the fiber
Group Velocity: It is the speed at which energy in a particular mode
travels along the fiber.
Intermodal delay/ modal delay
The maximum pulse broadening arising from the modal delay is
the difference between the travel time Tmax of the longest ray and
the travel time Tmin of the shortest ray .
This broadening is simply obtained from ray tracing for a fiber of
length L:
∆T= Tmax – Tmin = n1/c ( L/sinøc –L) = (Ln12/cn2)∆
∆T= Tmax – Tmin = (Ln12/cn2)∆
Intermodal delay/ modal delay
Fiber Capacity:
Fiber capacity is specified in terms of the bit rate-distance product
BL.
(Bit rate times the possible transmission distance L)
For neighboring signal pulses to remain distinguishable at the
receiver, the pulse spread should be less than 1/B.
Or
Pulse spread should be less than the width of a bit period.
∆T < 1 /B General requirement
∆T ≤ 0.1 /B For high performance link
Bit rate distance product BL < n2 c/ n12 ∆
Dispersion
Intramodal Dispersion or Chromatic Dispersion
This takes place within a single mode.
Intramodal dispersion depends on the wavelength, its effect on
signal distortion increases with the spectral width of the light
source.
Spectral width is approximately 4 to 9 percent of a central
wavelength.
Two main causes of intramodal dispersion are as:
1. Material Dispersion
2. Waveguide Dispersion
Characteristics of Single Mode Fibers
These Characteristics include :
1. Index profile configuration
2. Cutoff wavelength
3. Signal dispersion designations and calculations
4. Mode field diameter
5. Signal loss due to fiber bending.
Three dimensional refractive index profiles for (a) matched cladding 1310nm optimized
(b) depressed cladding 1310nm optimized (c) triangular dispersion shifted and (d)
quadruple clad dispersion flattened single mode fibers.
SM-fiber dispersions
Typical waveguide dispersion and the common material dispersion for three
different single mode fiber designs.