 Fiber

Fiber--Optic Communications Technology

Chapter 4

Optical Fibers – (Multimode)

A Deeper Look

Maxwell’s Equations
Propagation of EM Wave
M
More b t TIR & M
about d
Modes
Attenuation
Dispersion

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Fiber--Optic Communications Technology

4.1 Maxwell’s equation

 Set of Maxwell’s equations
Gauss’s Law

G
Gauss’s
’ Law
L

Faraday’s Law

Ampere’s Law

D: electric-flux density or electric displacement;

B: magnetic-flux density;
E: electric field; H: magnetic field;
J: is the current density;

Constitutive equations
D   E; B  H 2
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Fiber--Optic Communications Technology

 I t
Interpretation
t ti off M
Maxwell’s
ll’ Equation
E ti
: Gauss’s
G ’ law : the total electric
i flux
f through any
closed surface is equal to the total charge

: No free magnetic charge

: The law of induction : The vortex source of E is a

time-varying magnetic flux Psi

: Ampere’s circuital law : The circulation of H around

the closed loop is the sum of the conduction current
and the displacement current.

-> Ampere (French) -> Maxwell (Scottish; add Id EM waves in free space)
-〉

-> Heinrich
H i i h Hertz
H (German;
(G 1st
1 experiment)
i ) -> Marconi
M i (I
(Italian;
li 1st
1 radio)
di )
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 W
Wave Equations
E ti (in
i free
f space)
 Plane Transverse Electromagnetic (TEM) waves

Plane: polarized in x-z or y-z plan;

Transverse: perpendicular to the

direction of propagation.
propagation

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Fiber--Optic Communications Technology

 Wave equations for plane TEM waves

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Fiber--Optic Communications Technology

 S l i Wave
Solving W Equations
E ti
( for the plane harmonic TEM waves )

: wave number
: velocity of light ( correct in page 89 ! )

: propagation constant
: angular
l frequency
f
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4 2 Propagation of EM Waves (in

4.2 t i l)
i material
 Wave Eq.
q for a Time-
Time-Harmonic EM Field
The time-harmonic EM filed in phasor form is
,
which real parts of the expressions give the physical expressions of the fields.

The wave equations for plane waves become

,

which solutions can be written as

,
where , and  ,  are initial phases.

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 EM Waves: Propagation in a Lossy Medium

From the Maxwell’s equation, one
can rewrite the wave equation as

where  : is attenuation constant

The new ppropagation

p g constant = attenuation constant + phase
p constant !!

Damping
p g pplane transverse electromagnetic
g waves
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 EM Waves:
W Propagation
P ti ini Waveguides
W id
 Wave Equation
q
The wave equation in a rectangular
waveguide can be written as
 2x y E  h 2 E  0

where h2  2  k2 ,    j and k  .
v
 Modes in Waveguides：（conductor + lossless dielectric）
->
> TE,
TE TM,
TM HE or EH modes (some stable patterns)
from the boundary condition
y=0 y=a = 0 ( H z / y  0 );
Ex|y=0, x=0 x=b = 0 （… …）;
Ey|x=0, ;
Ez  0 ,
H z ( x, y )  H 0 cos(l x / b)cos(m y / a)
l 2 m 2
Ex ( x, y )  ( j / h 2 )(m / a ) H 0 cos(l x / b)sin(m y / a) h2  ( ) ( )
a b 9
Ey , H x , H y , ... ...
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 C t ff condition
Cutoff diti

EM field frequency is low: Field will damp

EM field frequency is high: Field will
ill propagate without
itho t
attenuation

-> Cutoff Frequency (higher frequencies can go through)

or Cutoff Wavelength

Q: anything wrong with g   eq. (4.26’) ?

[1  ( f / f c ) 2 ] 10
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43M
4.3 More about
b t TIR
 Boundary Conditions
z
 Tangential components of Reflected
EM waves
electric and magnetic field
intensities are the same on Refracted
(transmitted)
both sides of the boundary of EM waves

medium 1 (1, )

medium 2 (2, )
two lossless dielectric. y

 Evanescent wave： Incident

EM waves

which attenuation constant is:

The evanescent wave exist only under the condition of total internal
reflection; otherwise, the refracted wave would propagate through the
secondd medium.
di
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 Reflectances
 Fresnel formulas：reflectances, and transmittance (addition to Snell’s law)

The Brewster angle, , is the angle of incidence

at which a polarized wave has zero reflectance | i |2.

 Phase shift of totally reflected waves

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44M
4.4 More about
b tM Modes
d
 Mode Theory and Some Important Results

Structure of Optical Fibers

Wave Equations (in cylindrical coordinate)

+ Boundary Conditions
=〉Fiber Modes : TE, TM, HE or EH modes

The main result of solutions of these modal equations is that

the EM field can propagate within a waveguide structure not as a continuum
b t as a sett off discrete
but di t field
fi ld patterns
tt
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 Wave Equations (in cylindrical coordinate)

-> E、E
、 r、H、  and Hr can be deduced from the
relationship with Ez and Hz

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 Linear-Polarized ((LP)) Modes

-> Weakly guided-mode approximation: n1-n2<<1.
->
> Under
U d thithis condition,
diti natural
t l modesd willill degenerate
d t into
i t linear-
li
polarized modes that exist in optical fibers.

a) Composition of two
LP11 modes from true
modes and their
transverse electric field
and intensity distributions;
b) the four possible
transverse electric-field
and magnetic-field
directions and the
corresponding intensity
distributions for the LP11
modes.

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The designations, l、m, mean :

l One-half the number of the maxima (or minima) intensity that
occurs while the angular coordinate changes from 0 to 2 radius.

m The number of maxima intensity that occur while the radial coordinate
changes
h ffrom zero to infinity.
f
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 Meridional and skew beams

-> Meridional beams hav e only
p
two coordinate components,, can be
composed of transverse nateral
modes TE0m and TM0m.

-> Skew beams correspond to

hybrid natural modes EH1m and
HE1m.

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 Three Types
yp of Modes :
Guided mode, Radiation mode, Leaky mode

a. The
Th modesd guided
id d by
b the
th optical
ti l fiber
fib are called
ll d guided
id d modes
d
(internal refl., 2k phase repetition, stable, core-confined)
b. Radiation modes will not experience total internal reflection and will
propagate outside the fiber core (meet the cladding-coating interface)
Inject light into a fiber at a less-than-critical incident angle.
c. Leaky modes are characterized by having the 2k
phase condition but they are not totally reflected
(e.g. bent waveguide, SiO2 WG on Si substrate)

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Fiber--Optic Communications Technology

 Ph
Phase and
dGGroup Velocities
V l iti

The phase of point M is constant with respective the wave

t   z = constant for any t
: v is called the phase velocity.
Group velocity is defined as

For amplitude-modulated signal, any information (rad/s)

( d/ )
signal and power travel at the group, not at the c/n2
phase velocity. Guided
modes
c/n
/ 1
Guided, radiation, and leaky modes 
on  –  plane No
modes

min max (rad/m)

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 Power Confinement
Poynting vector : power per unit of a cross-sectional area that is transported
by an EM field

Power transport
p mechanism and ppower distribution
-> There is no other mechanism to deliver power from a source to a
detector except through the individual modes.
-> The higher the order of the mode, the less the percentage of total
power it carries.

Larger V, better confinement, smaller ratio.

Energy in cladding: MMF: 2% (larger diameter!) SMF: 20%

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 Cutoff Wavelength (Frequency)

 Cutoff condition for optical fiber.

V > ka : k is the propagation constant along the transverse direction!

 Cutoff condition  total internal reflection

->

->

->

: the cutoff condition at the upper level is equivalent to

the condition of total internal reflection.

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Fiber--Optic Communications Technology

 Cutoff condition  Power confinement

-> determines the highest modes that a
fiber can support
pp
-> If V2.4, only the fundamental mode
can be supported (V = C/lambda)

 Limiting the number of modes and the

roles of cladding

-> To reduce fiber modes, we can not

only decrease a, but also manipulate 

 Cutoff wavelength
Power-confinement as a function of V-number

-> The lower the frequency (that is, the longer the light wavelength), the greater the
propagation angle (that is, the less the incident angle ).

 Effective refractive index

or
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4 5 Attenuation
4.5 Att ti ini Multimode
M lti d Fibers
Fib
 General Approach
Relationship between electric displacement and electric field intensity is :

-> The electric susceptibility is the complex quantity whose real part is the
refractive index and whose imaginary part is the absorption coefficient.

 Intrinsic Losses
 Material resonance
-> Silica display heavy absorption in the
UV and IR regions and both absorption
are wavelength dependent.
dependent
Weight + Spring or Energy Gaps

 Rayleigh scattering
-> Irregular positions of molecules of silicon dioxide, i.e.variations of RI. 23
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Fiber--Optic Communications Technology

 Choice of operating wavelength

-> Intrinsic losses restrict the range of a practical operating wavelength
to between 800nm and 1700nm .

 Other types of fiber (new material or new structure)

J. C. Knight
g and P. St. J. Russell* “New Waysy to Guide Light”,
g , Science,,
Vol 296, Issue 5566, 276-277 , 12 April 2002.

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Fiber--Optic Communications Technology

 Extrinsic Losses - Absorption

-> Imperfections (major culprit is the hydroxyl group, OH) introduced during
fabrication process.

 Extrinsic Losses – Bending Losses

Macrobending loss -> higher order modes
-> The more light power confined within
the core, the less sensitive the fiber is
with respective
p to bending！！
g

 Microbending loss -> radiation modes

-> A multimode fiber is less sensitive to

microbending than is a single-mode
fiber ！
-> Microbending loss in multimode
fiber is practically wavelength
independent.
p

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 Modes Attenuation and Attenuation Constant

 Modes and attenuation
->
> The longer the fiber
fiber, the less will
ill be its attenuation
atten ation (measured
(meas red in dB/Km) until
ntil
some steady state value is reached.
-> The higher order modes disappear faster than the lower-order modes, thus
causing attenuation to change over the fiber length.

and

 Attenuation and attenuation constant

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4 6 Dispersion
4.6 Di i ini Multimode
M lti d Fibers
Fib
 General Comments
 Definition
-> Intermodal dispersion, caused by the presence of many modes within a fiber, and
intramodal dispersion
-> Intramodal dispersion, caused by the effects occurring from the actions of
components within a single mode.

 Total dispersion and pulse width

-> Assume that both components of total

dispersion are linear independent.
-> Pulse width is usually measured as full
width at the half maximum of the pulse
po er (FWHM).
power (FWHM)
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 Total dispersion
p and ppulse width

-> The bandwidth of the optical fiber itself,

BWoptical, is greater than the total bandwidth of
the entire system.
system

 Intermodal (Modal) Dispersion

-> Not all modes is excited for a laser diode.

-> The higher-order modes carry much less
power than the lower-order
lower order modes.
modes
-> The power of the initially critical mode does not travel the longest distance due
to the mode coupling.
-> Different
ff modes
d cannot travell at the h same velocity.
l
-> Different modes with different wavelength will “see” different refractive index. 28
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Fiber--Optic Communications Technology

 Chromatic Dispersion –
Material Dispersion
 Basic definitions
Intramodal dispersion : an individual mode
includes light consisting of dispersion, each
traveling along the fiber at a different velocity.

Chromatic dispersion =
material
i l dispersion
di i + waveguide
id dispersion
di i
-> Waveguide dispersion plays an essential
role in single mode fibers, but is negligible
in multimode fiber.
-> Material dispersion is proportional to the
spectral width of the light source.

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 Derivation
i i off the
h formula
f l for
f material
i l dispersion
di i

…
propagation delay per kilometer
linear approximation

Group effective index of refraction :

-> Group velocity, , is equal to the
speed of light in a vacuum, c, divided by the
group effective index of refraction, Neff.

, or

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 Making practical calculation of

material dispersion（from the
three-term Sellmeier Equations）

-> Here a chromatic-dispersion

pparameter,, D(),
( ), instead of a
material-dispersion parameter,
Dmat(), because in
multimode fiber the material-
dispersion parameter is
almost equivalent to that of
chromatic dispersion.

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 Spectral width

Total pulse spreading by material dispersion is

where the spectral width is the width in nanometers at half of maximum power.

-> The greater the spectral width, the more wavelengths emitted by the light source.

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 Waveguide Dispersion
-> it develops when the propagation constant is dependent on wavelength.

 Bandwidth of Multimode Fibers

 Intermodal bandwidth.
-> for step-index fibers

-> for graded-index fibers

-> an empiric formula :

: The measured real bandwidth is almost ten times smaller than the theoretical
limits shown in the above Figure.
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 M t i l bandwidth.
Material b d idth

-> An empiric formula :

 Choice of operating wavelength

+ 1300nm is the center of
-> ~1.3m for multimode fiber
the second transparent window
 Dispersion power penalty

(rms pulse spread, , PD=1dB)

 Bandwidth-length
Bandwidth length product limit

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