Atutorial,

fiber-
Feature
A fiber-optic tutoriAl, pArt1

part 1
understand the basic
components of optical
fiber and different
fiber types.
BY RENAUD LAVOIE

i
n a previous Broadcast Engineering article (“Understanding blocking ca-
pacitor effects,” August 2011), I mentioned that one of the first tasks in
my broadcast engineer career was to work on optical-to-electrical (O2E)
and electrical-to-optical (E2O) converters. I explained that I tried dif-
ferent SFPs with video pathological signals without any success at that time.
Before joining this broadcast business, I used to work in the telecommunica-
tion world, where I learned the basic fundamentals of optical communica-
tion. With this article, I hope end users and designers will understand a little
bit more the concept and theory behind fiber transport.
The quantity of information on fiber optics is huge. There are multiple
books and websites dedicated to it, as well as multiple papers from IEEE re-
search. The question for me was: What should I explain, and in how much de-
tail? You will find the answers inside this series of articles, and the hope is that
they will be specific enough to spark your interest for fiber. This first part will
describe the physics and types of fibers. Then, the second part will describe

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r-optic
Feature
A fiber-optic tutoriAl, pArt1

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 Feature
A fiber-optic tutorial, part1

the conversion between electrical sig-

Electrical to optical nals and light at the source and desti-
conversion nation, as well as the effect of the fiber
Message Optical signal output
Electrical input Laser on the optical signal.
input

Optical beginning
Optical communication motiva-
tion began with the invention of the
laser in the early 1960s. Since then,
the technology has evolved at the
speed of light. Optical technology has
Optical fiber link
advanced so fast that it has become
the information conduit of the world.
The transmission of data, voice and
media is distributed at the speed
Optical to electrical
conversion of light over a mesh of glass fibers
Optical signal input that span thousands of kilometers
Message
Detector output Electrical output throughout the world. In this article,
I will explain the elements included in
Figure 1, the physics of light, and the
Figure 1. This shows the typical components found in a point-to-point optical basics of the fiber optic medium.
communication system.
Light and basic formulas
Increasing frequency (N) The general definition of light says
1024 1022 1020 1018 1016 1014 1012 1010 108 106 104 102 100 N (Hz) it is electromagnetic radiation that is
FM AM visible or invisible to the human eye,
G rays X rays UV IR Microwave Radio Long radio waves and is responsible for the sense of
waves sight when visible. (See Figure 2.) Pri-
10-16 10-14 10-12 10-10 10-8 10-6 10-4 10-2 100 102 104 106 108 L (m) mary properties of light are: intensity,
Increasing wavelength (L) propagation direction, frequency or
Visible spectrum
wavelength spectrum, and polariza-
tion. In a vacuum, the velocity of light
is 299,792,458m/s and is one of the
constants of nature. It is represented
by “c” in the equation shown below.
(This constant could change based on
400 500 600 700 recent experimental results of Neutri-
Increasing wavelength (L) in nm nos, however, so stay tuned.)
Figure 2. This shows the light spectrum, which is electromagnetic radiation that is visible
Light is a wave that propagates
or invisible to the human eye. Without visible light, the human sense of sight is not through space. This space can be a
possible. vacuum, or air, or certain materials
such as glass or plastic, both of which
Ceiling
can be used for fiber production.
Mirror Quickly, one question becomes: What
is the speed of light inside the fiber?
The speed of light inside the glass or
plastic fiber can be obtained from the
following equation:
c
s=
n

Mirror This equation is almost identical to

Floor that for an electrical signal in a piece
of coaxial cable, or a radio signal
Figure 3. By shining a light and reflecting it off mirrors on the ceiling and floor, it is possible transmitted through a waveguide. In
to model how light travels in fiber. fact, fiber-optic cables are often called

68 broadcastengineering.com | June 2012

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 Feature
A fiber-optic tutorial, part1

and put it over a mirror. If the light

was directional (straight propagation),
no light would bounce (reflect) off the
mirror, right? The source is sending
light in various directions, like a cone.
Also, you see the mirror reflect the
Core light. Next, place mirrors on the floor
8Mm
Cladding and ceiling. Your light will travel in air
125Mm exactly like light in fiber. (See Figure 3
Buffer
250Mm on page 68.)
Jacket • Wavelength — Light wavelength de-
400Mm pends on its source. Every source has
a wavelength or spectrum of wave-
Figure 4. The optical fiber is made up of two concentric, cylindrical strands of silica lengths. (We will explore this more
surrounded by a plastic coating. with laser and photodiode light sourc-
waveguides, and the glass or plastic • Intensity — Intensity is measured in es in the next article, part 2.)
is referred to as the dielectric. In our Lumens. But, fiber-optic system design • Polarization — Light is electromag-
example, “s” is the speed of light in a is easiest if we know the power gener- netic radiation (E-M radiation) com-
material and “n” is the refractive in- ated by the light source. This param- posed of two components — electri-
dex for that material. In silica glass, eter will be expressed in dBm. cal and magnetic. These components
the refractive index is 1.45, so the oscillate in phase with each other.
dBm = 10 x log10 (Power in mW)
light will travel at 225,407.863m/s. When light travels in free space, these
Let’s look at some other properties • Propagation direction — To under- fields are normally perpendicular. But
of light: stand propagation, take a flashlight sometimes, the oscillation may rotate

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 2444Ad4.12.pdf 1 4/12/12 2:46 PM

Feature
4x4 HD-SDIAMatrix Switcher
fiber-optic tutoriAl, pArt1

Normal

Refraction
Material boundary

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Figure 5. Light is confined within the optical fiber core CMY

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Optical fiber as a medium
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Broadcast engineers are well familiar with coaxi-
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can reach distances of more than 180m. Even with these
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In the 1960s, Charles Kao pursued the idea of using
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0.1db/km to 0.5db/km.

Optical fiber structure

The optical fiber is made up of two concentric, cylindri-
cal strands of silica surrounded by a plastic coating. (See
Figure 4.) The center-most silica strand is the fiber core
with a refractive index of approximately 1.48. The core of
N E W!
the fiber physically transports most of the optical power.

Normal
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Fiber cladding
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Figure 6. Multimode fiber allows multiple rays to propagate

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simultaneously down the fiber. Tempest and Tempest logo are registered trademarks of CoachComm, LLC.

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 Feature
A fiber-optic tutoriAl, pArt1

The core is surrounded by another Let’s also consider, for now, the fi- known as Snell’s law, and it is repre-
strand of silica called cladding. The ber is perfect. Attenuation and disper- sented as:
cladding has a slightly lower refractive sion losses will be discussed later. n1 sin01 = n2 sign02
index, 1.46, and acts like my mirrors. or
The goal of the cladding is to keep Theory of reflection
n1 cosU1 = n2 cosU2
the energy inside the core by reflect- Like my mirror example, the
ing all of the light back into the core. light in the fiber should reflect on Consider a ray of light pass-
ing between two media of differ-
ent refractive indices n1 and n2, as
Multimode fiber is sensitive to dispersion, Snell’s equation shows. Reflection
which tends to limit the distance and occurs when ncore > ncladding, and
the incident ray of light makes an an-
bandwidth of an optical system. gle, c, such that it doesn’t enter the
adjacent medium but travels along
But, because the cladding is glass, the boundary of the core and the the interface. At angles greater than
sometimes light will escape in specific cladding. From the previous equa- c, it is reflected into medium A.
conditions, and signal energy is lost. tion, we learned the concept of the Light is confined within the core of
The outermost layer of the optical refractive indexes “n.” Because the the optical fiber through reflection.
fiber is the buffer coating. This thin, core and cladding don’t have the To understand reflection and how it’s
plastic covering protects the glass same refractive indices, it should responsible for light confinement in
from mechanical and environmental be possible to keep all energy in- an optical fiber, consider a ray of light
damage. Finally, the buffer is covered side the core. This is called Total incident on the fiber core. (See Figure
by the jacket. You might observe two Internal Reflection. However, it is 5 on page 71.)
colors of external jackets, orange and not possible under all conditions. Light enters the fiber core and
yellow. Orange is used for multimode The relationship describing refrac- strikes the core/cladding interface at
fiber and yellow for single-mode fiber tion at the interface between two dif- an angle . If this angle is greater than
(mono) mode. ferent light-transmitting materials is the critical angle (i.e.  ≥ c where c
= arcsin(n2/n1)), the ray will reflect
back into the core, thus experiencing
Index Input Output
profile pulse pulse
total internal reflection. This ray will
continue to experience total inter-
nal reflection as it comes upon core/
cladding interfaces while propagating
down the fiber.

Multimode fiber
The name multimode fiber comes
from the number of waves (light
paths) guided in the core. The most
popular size is 65μm, but for some
Figure 7. This shows a multimode fiber that is stepped-refractive-index-profile. systems, 50μm is a better choice.
Multimode fiber allows multiple
Index Input Output rays/modes to couple and propagate
profile pulse pulse down the fiber at the same time. (See
Figure 6 on page 71.) Large core fiber
is attractive due to the ease in which
light can be coupled into the fiber,
greatly reducing transmitter design
and packaging costs. Multimode fiber
is sensitive to dispersion, which tends
to limit an optical system’s distance
and bandwidth. Multimode fiber can
be stepped-refractive-index-profile,
or graded-index-profile. (See Figures
Figure 8. This shows a multimode fiber that is graded-index-profile. 7 and 8.)

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 Feature
A fiber-optic tutorial, part1

Index Input Output

profile pulse pulse
Both figures show an input pulse
is made up of multiple modes/rays.
Each of the three rays takes differ-
ent paths propagating through the
core of the multimode fiber stepped
refractive index and graded index
profile. As a result, the three light rays
arrive at different times, which causes
broadening of the input pulse. This is
dispersion and can lead to inter-sym-
bol interference.
Figure 9. A single-mode fiber (mono mode) only allows one ray/mode to propagate
through the fiber.This is done by shrinking the fiber core to comparable dimensions
Single-mode fiber of the transmitted wavelength.
As the name implies, a single-
mode fiber only allows one ray/mode systems employ higher-costing lasers. Looking forward
to propagate through the fiber core. However, single-mode fiber has an My next article will describe the
(See Figure 9.) This is accomplished advantage of higher capacity/band- different sources, different types of
by shrinking the core of the fiber to width and is also much less sensi- receivers and various loss-generating
dimensions comparable to that of tive to the effects of dispersion than effects such as attenuation, disper-
the wavelength being transmitted. multimode fiber. It is also possible to sion and return loss in the fiber optic
Single-mode fiber has a core dimen- incorporate wavelength division mul- cable itself. BE
sion of ~9μm, making transmit- tiplexing techniques to further in-
ter coupling much more difficult. crease the transmission capacity of a Renaud Lavoie is president and CEO of
Consequentially, single-mode fiber single-mode fiber. Embrionix Design.

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