Lecture 1

This lecture topic is mapped with CO1 and CO2 of course.

• Brief Introduction
• Optical fiber construction
• Critical angle & Total Internal Reflection
Brief Introduction
An optical fiber is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic
to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often
as a means to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber and find wide usage in
fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at
higher bandwidths than wire cables. Fibers are used instead of metal wires because
signals travel along them with lesser amounts of loss; in addition, fibers are also immune
to electromagnetic interference, a problem from which metal wires suffer excessively.
The uses of optical fibre are given bellow:
1. Communication - Telephone transmission method uses fibre-optic cables. Optical
fibres transmit energy in the form of light pulses. The technology is similar to that of the
coaxial cable, except that the optical fibres can handle tens of thousands of conversations
simultaneously.
2. Medical uses - Optical fibres are well suited for medical use. They can be made in
extremely thin, flexible strands for insertion into the blood vessels, lungs, and other
hollow parts of the body. Optical fibres are used in a number of instruments that enable
doctors to view internal body parts without having to perform surgery.
3. Simple uses - The simplest application of optical fibres is the transmission of light to
locations otherwise hard to reach. Also, bundles of several thousand very thin fibres
assembled precisely side by side and optically polished at their ends, can be used to
transmit images.
Optical fiber construction
A typical optical fiber comprises three main components: the core, which carries the
light; the cladding, which surrounds the core with a lower refractive index and contains
the light; and the coating, which protects the fragile fiber within [1].
Core
The core, which carries the light, is the smallest part of the optical fiber. The optical fiber
core is usually made of glass, although some are made of plastic. The glass used in the
core is extremely pure silicon dioxide (SiO2), a material so clear that you could look
through 5 miles of it as though you were looking through a household window. In the
manufacturing process, dopants such as germania, phosphorous pentoxide, or alumina are
used to raise the refractive index under controlled conditions.

Figure 1 Basic structure and parts of optical fibre [2]

Optical fiber cores are manufactured in different diameters for different applications.
Typical glass cores range from as small as 3.7m up to 200m. Core sizes commonly
used in telecommunications are 9m, 50m and 62.5m. Plastic optical fiber cores can
be much larger than glass. A popular plastic core size is 980m.
Cladding
The cladding is surrounding the core and providing the lower refractive index to make the
optical fiber work. When glass cladding is used, the cladding and the core are
manufactured together from the same silicon dioxide-based material in a permanently
fused state. The manufacturing process adds different amounts of dopants to the core and
the cladding to maintain a difference in refractive indexes between them of about 1%. A
typical core may have a refractive index of 1.49 at 1300nm while the cladding may have
a refractive index of 1.47. These numbers, however, are wavelength dependent. The core
of the same fiber will have a different refractive index at a different wavelength. Like the
core, the cladding is manufactured in standard diameters. The two most commonly used
diameters are 125m and 140m. The 125m cladding typically supports core sizes of
9m, 50m, 62.5m and 85m. The 140m cladding typically has a 100m core.
Coating
The coating is the protective layer of the optical fiber. The coating absorbs the shocks,
nicks, scrapes, and even moisture that could damage the cladding. Without the coating,
the optical fiber is very fragile. A single microscopic nick in the cladding could cause the
optical fiber to break when it’s bent. Coating is essential for all-glass fibers, and they are
not sold without it. The coating is solely protective. It does not contribute to the light-
carrying ability of the optical fiber in any way. The outside diameter of the coating is
typically either 250m or 500m. Generally the coating is colorless. In some
applications, however, the coating is colored, so that individual optical fibers in a group
of optical fibers can be identified. The coating found on an optical fiber is selected for a
specific type of performance or environment. Once of the most common types of coating
is acrylate. This coating is typically applied in two layers. The primary coating is applied
directly on the cladding. This coating is soft and provides a cushion for the optical fiber
when it is bent. The secondary coating is harder than the primary coating and provides a
hard outer surface. Acrylate, however, is limited in temperature performance. A typical
acrylates may perform at temperatures up to 125º C. Silicon, carbon, and polyimide are
coatings that may be found on optical fibers that are used in harsh environments such as
those associated with avionics, aerospace, and space. They may also be used on optical
fibers designed for mining, or oil and gas drilling.
Standards
While many combinations of core and cladding sizes are possible, standards are
necessary to ensure that connectors and equipment can be matched properly. This is
especially important when dealing with components as small as those used in fiber optics,
where even slight misalignments can render the entire system useless [3].
So what are optical fibers made of then?
Turns out they can be made of just glass, glass plus polymers, or just polymers ("plastic
optical fibers" -POF-). The most basic optical fiber consist of:
An inner cylinder with high refractive index, called the core.
A middle cylinder with a lower refractive index, called the cladding.
An outer protective polymer layer (usually polyurethane or PVC) called the jacket.
For glass optical fibers, the diameter of the core ranges between 10-600 microns, the
cladding thickness is between 125-630 microns, and that of the jacket varies between
250-1040 microns. For POF all diameters range between 750-2000 microns. As can be
seen, one of the main differences between glass and plastic optical fibers is their
diameter. This makes POF easier to handle.
The material used for currently commercialized fibers (core and cladding) include pure
glass (SiO2), plastic, or a combination of both. The use of one or the other material will
be determined by such factors as quality and economics.

Plastic optical fibers (POF) have the advantage of being made of cheaper materials than
glass and to operate in the visible range of the spectrum. However, they show a high loss,
and for that reason their applications are confined to short distance transmission. In spite
of this, POF is widely used for medical and industrial instruments, and currently research
 is carried out about using POF as a replacement of copper wiring for data transmission in
automobiles. If you use silica glass for the core, it must be high purity in order to allow
the light to be transmitted along the core with minimal loss [4].
I- Glass-Glass Fiber
• Glass as silica (SiO2) with refractive Index (RI) of 1.458 at 850nm
• Addition of GeO2 and P2O5 increases RI.
• Addition of B2O3 and fluorine decreases RI.

Figure 2 Increase or decrease of RI by adding dopants [5].

I- Glass-Glass Fiber
• Combinations can be—
• GeO2 - SiO2 core, SiO2 Cladding.
• P2O5 - SiO2 core, SiO2 Cladding.
• SiO2 core, B2O3 -SiO2 Cladding.
• GeO2 - B2O3 - SiO2 core, B2O3 -SiO2 Cladding.
II- Plastic clad Glass Fiber
• Glass core and plastic cladding.
 • Higher losses.
• Short distance (several hundred meters).
• Reduced cost.
• Core Silicon resin RI = 1.405 at 850nm
• Clad is Teflon PEP (Perfluoronated ethylene propylene) with RI = 1.338.
• Large NA with large RI difference.
• Core dia of 150 to 600µm.
• LED as source.
III- Plastic Fiber
• Very short distance (100m max).
• High attenuation.
• Low cost, tough, durable and inexpensive.
• Core dia of 110 to 1400µm.
• LED as source.
• Polystyrene core (1.6), methyl methacrylate clad (1.49). NA = 0.6.
• Polymethyle methacrylate core(1.49), its co-polymer(1.40), NA = 0.5
Remember!
• Germanium dioxide and phosphorus pentaoxide increase the refractive index of glass
• Boron oxide decreases the refractive index of glass.
• These oxides are known as dopants.
• Changing composition of the mixture during the process influences refractive index
profile of the preform [5].
Transmission of light through optical fibres or Principle of optical fibre
Total internal reflection is a phenomenon that happens when a propagating wave strikes a
medium boundary at an angle larger than a particular critical angle with respect to the
normal to the surface. If the refractive index is lower on the other on the other side of the
boundary and the incident angle is greater than the critical angle, the wave cannot pass
through and is entirely reflected. The critical angle is the angle of incidence above which
the total internal reflection occurs. This is particularly common as an optical
phenomenon, where light waves are involved, but it occurs with many types of waves are
involved, but it occurs with many types of waves, such as electromagnetic waves in
general or sound waves.
 Critical angle
• The angle at which total internal reflection occurs is called the critical angle of incidence.
• At any angle of incidence (1) greater than the critical angle, light is totally reflected back
to the glass medium.
• For n1 > n2, the angle of refraction q2 is always greater than the angle of incidence 1.
• When the angle of refraction 2 is 90o the refracted ray emerges parallel to the interface
between the media.

Figure 3 when the angle of incidence is equal to the critical angle, the angle of refraction is
equal to 90° [6]
Refractive index
• The index of refraction of a material is the ratio of the speed of light in a vacuum to the
speed of light in the material
n = c/v
The factor n is the index of refraction (or refractive index) of the medium.
For air and gases n ~ 1. At optic frequencies, the refractive index of water is 1.33.
• Glass has many compositions, each with a slightly different n. An approximate refractive
index of 1.5 is representative for the silica glasses used in fibers; more precise values for
these glasses lie between ~1.45 and ~1.48.

Snell’s Law
 Snell derived the relationship between the different angles of light as it passes from one
transparent medium to another. When light passes from one transparent material to another, it
bends according to Snell's law which is defined as:

n1sin(θ1) = n2sin(θ2)
where:-
n1 is the refractive index of the medium the light is leaving
θ1 is the incident angle between the light beam and the normal (normal is 90° to the interface
between two materials)
n2 is the refractive index of the material the light is entering
θ2 is the refractive angle between the light ray and the normal

Figure 4 Snell’s Law [7]

Note:
For the case of θ1 = 0° (i.e., a ray perpendicular to the interface) the solution is θ2 = 0° regardless
of the values of n1 and n2. That means a ray entering a medium perpendicular to the surface is
never bent. The above is also valid for light going from a dense (higher n) to a less dense (lower
n) material; the symmetry of Snell's law shows that the same ray paths are applicable in opposite
direction.
 Figure 5 Total internal reflection [7]
When a light ray crosses an interface into a medium with a higher refractive index, it bends
towards the normal. Conversely, light traveling cross an interface from a higher refractive index
medium to a lower refractive index medium will bend away from the normal. This has an
interesting implication: at some angle, known as the critical angle θc, light traveling from a
higher refractive index medium to a lower refractive index medium will be refracted at 90°; in
other words, refracted along the interface. If the light hits the interface at any angle larger than
this critical angle, it will not pass through to the second medium at all. Instead, all of it will be
reflected back into the first medium, a process known as total internal reflection.
References
[1] https://www.toppr.com/content/concept/optical-fibres-210274/
[2] https://byjus.com/physics/what-is-optical-fiber/
[3] https://brainly.in/question/7204881
[4] https://pslc.ws/macrog/fiberopt/of.htm
[5] https://www.slideshare.net/MadhumitaTamhane/optical-fiber-communication-part-1- optical-
fiber-fundamentals
[6] https://www.siyavula.com/read/science/grade-11/geometrical-optics/05-geometrical-optics-
07
[7]https://www.fiberoptics4sale.com/blogs/archive-posts/95146054-optical-fiber-tutorial-optic-
fiber-communication-fiber
Video Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZOg39v73c4
Research Paper link
https://www.krishisanskriti.org/vol_image/02Jul201505070921.pdf

Homework Lecture 1
1) What is used for the fabrication of optical fibers that are used for communication?
2) Describe the function of core and cladding in optical fiber.
3) Why the refractive index of core and cladding are different? Which one has greater
refractive index and why?