Optical & Wireless Communication

By
Prof. Veerappa S Chikkagoudar

Department of
Electronics & Communication Engineering

www.cambridge.edu.in
Module 1

Optical Fiber Structures:

Attenuation and Dispersion:

Department of
Electronics & Communication Engineering

www.cambridge.edu.in
 Module 1
Optical Fiber Structures and
Attenuation and Dispersion

Objectives:
Optical Fiber Structures :
• Optical Fiber Modes and Configurations,
• Mode theory for circular waveguides,
• Single mode fibers,
• Fiber materials.
Attenuation and Dispersion:
Attenuation, Absorption, Scattering Losses, Bending loss,
Signal Dispersion: Modal delay, Group delay, Material dispersion.

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 Electromagnetic Spectrum

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 The general system

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 The optical fiber communication system

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 Optical Fiber Modes and Configurations

Fiber Types:
• An optical fiber is a dielectric waveguide that operates at optical frequencies.
• This fiber waveguide is normally cylindrical in form.
• It confines electromagnetic energy in the form of light to within its surfaces
and guides the light in a direction parallel to its axis.
• The transmission properties of an optical waveguide are dictated by its
structural characteristics, which have a major effect in determining how an
optical signal is affected as it propagates along the fiber

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 Optical Fiber Modes and Configurations

The structure basically establishes the information-carrying capacity of the

fiber and also influences the response of the waveguide to environmental
perturbations.
The propagation of light along a waveguide can be described in terms of a set
of guided electromagnetic waves called the modes of the waveguide.
These guided modes are referred to as the bound or trapped modes of the
waveguide.
Each guided mode is a pattern of electric and magnetic field distributions that
is repeated along the fiber at equal intervals. Only a certain discrete number of
modes are capable of propagating along the guide.
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 Optical Fiber Modes and Configurations

• The most widely accepted structure is the single solid dielectric cylinder of
radius a and index of refraction n1 shown in Fig.
• This cylinder is known as the core of the fiber.
• The core is surrounded by a solid dielectric cladding, which has a refractive
index n2 that is less than n1.
• The cladding reduces scattering loss that results from dielectric discontinuities
at the core surface, it
• adds mechanical strength to the fiber, and it protects the core from absorbing
surface contaminants with which it could come in contact.

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 Optical Fiber Modes and Configurations

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 Optical Fiber Modes and Configurations

• In standard optical fibers the core material is highly pure silica glass (SiO2)
compound and is surrounded by a glass cladding.
• Higher-loss plastic-core fibers with plastic claddings are also widely in use.
• In addition, most fibers are encapsulated in an elastic, abrasion-resistant plastic
material.
• This material adds further strength to the fiber and mechanically isolates or buffers
the fibers from small geometrical irregularities, distortions, or roughnesses of
adjacent surfaces.
• These perturbations could otherwise cause scattering losses induced by random
microscopic bends that can arise when the fibers are incorporated into cables or
supported by other structures.

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 Optical Fiber Modes and Configurations

• Variations in the material composition of the core give rise to the two
commonly used fiber types shown in Fig. 2.
• In the first case, the refractive index of the core is uniform throughout and
undergoes an abrupt change (or step) at the cladding boundary.
• This is called a step-index fiber.
• In the second case, the core refractive index is made to vary as a function of
the radial distance from the center of the fiber.
• This type is a graded-index fiber.

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 Optical Fiber Modes and Configurations

Both the step- and the graded-index fibers can be further divided into single-
mode and multimode classes.
As the name implies, a single-mode fiber sustains only one mode of
propagation, whereas multimode fibers contain many hundreds of modes.
A few typical sizes of single and multimode fibers are given in Fig above to
provide an idea of the dimensional scale.

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 Rays and Modes

• The electromagnetic light field that is guided along an optical fiber can be
represented by a superposition of bound or trapped modes.
• Each of these guided modes consists of a set of simple electromagnetic field
configurations.
• For monochromatic light fields of radian frequency 𝜔, a mode traveling in the
positive z direction (i.e., along the fiber axis) has a time and z dependence
given by

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 Rays and Modes

• The factor β is the z component of the wave propagation constant

k = 2π/λ and is the main parameter of interest in describing fiber
modes.
• For guided modes, β can assume only certain discrete values, which
are determined from the requirement that the mode field must
satisfy Maxwell’s equations and the electric and magnetic field
boundary conditions at the core-cladding interface.

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 Rays and Modes

• Another method for theoretically studying the propagation

characteristics of light in an optical fiber is the geometrical optics or
ray-tracing approach.
• This method provides a good approximation to the light acceptance
and guiding properties of optical fibers when the ratio of the fiber
radius to the wavelength is large.
• This is known as the small-wavelength limit.

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 Step-Index Fiber Structure

• We begin our discussion of light propagation in an optical waveguide

by considering the step-index fiber.
• In practical step-index fibers the core of radius a has a refractive index
n1, which is typically equal to 1.48.
• This is surrounded by a cladding of slightly lower index n2, where

• The parameter Δ is called the core-cladding index difference or

simply the index difference.

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 • Values of n2 are chosen such that Δ is nominally 0.01.
• Typical values range from 1 to 3 percent for multimode fibers and
from 0.2 to 1.0 percent for single-mode fibers.
• Since the core refractive index is larger than the cladding index,
electromagnetic energy at optical frequencies is made to propagate
along the fiber waveguide through internal reflection at the core-
cladding interface.

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 Ray Optics Representation

• The two types of rays that can propagate in a fiber are meridional rays and
skew rays.
• Meridional rays are confined to the meridian planes of the fiber, which are
the planes that contain the axis of symmetry of the fiber (the core axis).
• Since a given meridional ray lies in a single plane, its path is easy to track as
it travels along the fiber.
• Meridional rays can be divided into two general classes:
• bound rays that are trapped in the core and propagate along the fiber axis
according to the laws of geometrical optics, and unbound rays that are
refracted out of the fiber core.

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 Skew rays

• Skew rays are not confined to a single plane, but instead tend to
follow a helical-type path along the fiber as shown in Figure.

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 Meridional ray

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 • The light ray enters the fiber core from a medium of refractive index n
at an angle 𝜃0 with respect to the fiber axis and strikes the core-
cladding interface at a normal angle 𝜙.
• If it strikes this interface at such an angle that it is totally internally
reflected, then the meridional ray follows a zigzag path along the fiber
core, passing through the axis of the guide after each reflection.
• From Snell’s law, the minimum or critcal angle 𝜙c that supports total
internal reflection for the meridional ray is given by

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• Assuming the entrance face at the fiber core to be normal to the axis, then
considering the refraction at the air–core interface and using Snell’s law given
by
• n sin θ0 = n1 sin θ2 -------(1)
• Considering the right-angled triangle ABC indicated in Figure, then
𝜋 𝜋
• φ = − θ2, or θ2= - φ -------(2)
2 2
• where φ is greater than the critical angle at the core–cladding interface.
Hence Equation (1) becomes:
• n0 sin θ1 = n1 cos φ -------(3)

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• Using the trigonometrical relationship,
• Eq. (3) may be written in the form:
• When the limiting case for total internal reflection is considered,

θ1 = θa

• Hence the NA is defined as:

• Since the NA is often used with the fiber in air where n0 is unity, it is simply
equal to sin θa.

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 • Example 2.4 Consider a multimode silica fiber that has a core
refractive index n1 = 1.480 and a cladding index n2 = 1.460. Find (a)
the critical angle, (b) the numerical aperture, and (c) the acceptance
angle.

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 • Example 2.5 Consider a multimode fiber that has a core refractive
index of 1.480 and a core-cladding index difference 2.0 percent (Δ=
0.020). Find the (a) numerical aperture, (b) the acceptance angle, and
(c) the critical angle.

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 Mode Theory for Circular Waveguides
• Overview of Modes:let us qualitatively examine the appearance of
modal fields in the planar dielectric slab waveguide shown in Fig.

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 Physical model showing the ray propagation and the corresponding transverse electric (TE) field
patterns of three lower order models (m = 1, 2, 3) in the planar dielectric guide

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 Summary of Key Modal Concepts

• An important parameter connected with the cutoff condition is the V

number defined by

• This parameter is a dimensionless number that determines how many

modes a fiber can support.

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 • The V number also can be used to express the number of modes M in
a multimode step-index fiber when V is large for this case, an
estimate of the total number of modes supported in such a fiber is

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 • Example 2.7 Consider a multimode step-index fiber with a 62.5-um
core diameter and a core-cladding index difference of 1.5 percent. If
the core refractive index is 1.480, estimate the normalized frequency
of the fiber and the total number of modes supported in the fiber at a
wavelength of 850 nm.

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 Suppose we have a multimode step index optical fiber that has a core radius of
25 mm, a core index of 1.48, and an index difference D = 0.01. What are the
number of modes in the fiber at wavelengths 860, 1310, and 1550 nm?

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 Suppose we have three multimode step-index optical fibers each of which has a core index of
1.48 and an index difference D = 0.01. Assume the three fibers have core diameters of 50,
62.5, and 100 mm. What are the number of modes in these fibers at a wavelength of 1550
nm?

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 Single-Mode Fibers
• Single-mode fibers are constructed by letting the dimensions of the
core diameter be a few wavelengths (usually 8–12) and by having
small index differences between the core and the cladding.

• From above Eq. with V = 2.4, it can be seen that single-mode

propagation is possible for fairly large variations in values of the
physical core size a and the core-cladding index differences 𝚫.
• However, in practical designs of single-mode fibers, the core-cladding
index difference varies between 0.2 and 1.0 percent, and the core
diameter should be chosen to be just below the cutoff of the first
higher-order mode; that is, for V slightly less than 2.4.
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 Single-Mode Fibers
Distribution of light in a single-mode fiber above its
cutoff wavelength.
For a Gaussian distribution the MFD is given by the
1/e2 width of the optical power

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 Mode-Field Diameter

• In single-mode fibers the geometric distribution of light in the propagating

mode is what is needed when predicting the performance characteristics of
these fibers.
• Thus a fundamental parameter of a single-mode fiber is the mode-fi eld
diameter (MFD).
• This parameter can be determined from the mode-field distribution of the
fundamental fiber mode and is a function of the optical source wavelength,
the core radius, and the refractive index profile of the fiber.
• The MFD is an important parameter for single-mode fiber because it is
used to predict fiber properties such as splice loss, bending loss, cutoff
wavelength, and waveguide dispersion.

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 Mode-Field Diameter
• A standard technique
2
to find the MFD is to measure the far-field intensity
distribution 𝐸 (r) and then calculate the MFD using the Petermann II equation.

• where 2w0 (called the spot size) is the full width of the far-field distribution. For
calculation simplicity the exact field distribution can be fitted to a Gaussian
function.

• where r is the radius and E0 is the field at zero radius. Then the MFD is given by
the 1/e2 width of the optical power.

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 Propagation Modes in Single-Mode Fibers

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 Ex-8 Determine the cutoff wavelength for a step index fiber to exhibit
single-mode operation when the core refractive index and radius are 1.46
and 4.5μm, respectively, with the relative index difference being 0.25%.

• Solution: Using Eq.

with Vc = 2.405 gives:

• Hence the fiber is single-moded to a wavelength of 1214 nm.

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 Fiber Materials

In selecting materials for optical fibers, a number of requirements must be

satisfied.
For example:
1. It must be possible to make long, thin, flexible fibers from the material.
2. The material must be transparent at a particular optical wavelength in
order for the fiber to guide light efficiently.
3. Physically compatible materials that have slightly different refractive
indices for the core and cladding must be available.
Materials that satisfy these requirements are glasses and plastics

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 Glass Fibers
• Glass is made by fusing mixtures of metal oxides, sulfides, or
selenides.
• The resulting material is a randomly connected molecular network
rather than a well-defined ordered structure as found in crystalline
materials.
• The largest category of optically transparent glasses from which
optical fibers are made consists of the oxide glasses. Of these, the most
common is silica (SiO2), which has a refractive index ranging
from1.458 at 850 to 1.444 at 1550 nm.
• To produce two similar materials that have slightly different indices of
refraction for the core and cladding, either fluorine or various oxides
(referred to as dopants), such as B2O3, GeO2, or P2O5, are added to
the silica.
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As shown in Fig, the addition of GeO2 or P2O5 increases the
refractive index, whereas doping the silica with fluorine
or B2O3 decreases it. Since the cladding must have a lower index
than the core,
examples of fiber compositions are
1. GeO2–SiO2 core; SiO2 cladding
2. P2O5–SiO2 core; SiO2 cladding
3. SiO2 core; B2O3–SiO2 cladding
4. GeO2–B2O3–SiO2 core; B2O3–SiO2 cladding
Here, the notation GeO2–SiO2, for example,
denotes a GeO2-doped silica glass.

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 • The principal raw material for silica is high-purity sand.
• Glass composed of pure silica is referred to as either silica glass, fused
silica, or vitreous silica.

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 Active Glass Fibers

• Incorporating rare-earth elements (atomic numbers 57–71) into a

normally passive glass gives the resulting material new optical and
magnetic properties.
• These new properties allow the material to perform amplification,
attenuation, and phase retardation on the light passing through it.
Doping (i.e., adding impurities) can be carried out for silica, tellurite,
and halide glasses.
• Two commonly used doping materials for fiber lasers are erbium and
neodymium. The ionic concentrations of the rare-earth elements are
low (on the order of 0.005–0.05 mole percent) to avoid clustering
effects

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 Plastic Optical Fibers

• The growing demand for delivering high-speed services directly to the

workstation has led fiber developers to create high-bandwidth graded-
index polymer (plastic) optical fibers (POF) for use in a customer
premises.
• The core of these fibers is either polymethylmethacrylate or a
perfluorinated polymer.
• These fibers are hence referred to as PMMA POF and PF POF,
respectively.
• Although they exhibit considerably greater optical signal attenuations
than glass fibers, they are tough and durable.
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 Attenuation and Dispersion
• Signal attenuation (also known as fiber loss or signal loss) as is one of the most
important properties of an optical fiber because it largely determines the maximum
unamplified or repeaterless separation between a transmitter and a receiver.
• Since amplifiers and repeaters are expensive to fabricate, install, and maintain, the
degree of attenuation in a fiber has a large influence on system cost.
• The distortion mechanisms in a fiber cause optical signal pulses to broaden as they
travel along a fiber.
• If these pulses travel sufficiently far, they will eventually overlap with neighboring
pulses, thereby creating errors in the receiver output.
• The signal distortion mechanisms thus limit the information-carrying capacity of a
fiber.

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 Attenuation

• Attenuation of a light signal as it propagates along a fiber is an important con

sideration in the design of an optical communication system; the degree of
attenuation plays a major role in determining the maximum transmission
distance between a transmitter and a receiver or an in-line amplifier.
• The basic attenuation mechanisms in a fiber are absorption, scattering, and
radiative losses of the optical energy.
• Absorption is related to the fiber material, whereas scattering is associated
both with the fiber material and with structural imperfections in the optical
waveguide.
• Attenuation owing to radiative effects originates from perturbations (both
microscopic and macroscopic) of the fiber geometry.
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 Attenuation Units

• As light travels along a fiber, its power decreases exponentially with

distance. 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 farther down the fiber is.

is the fiber attenuation coefficient given in units of km-1

• Note that the units for 2zαp can also be designated by nepers.

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• For simplicity in calculating optical signal attenuation in a fiber, the common
procedure is to express the attenuation coefficient in units of decibels per
kilometer, denoted by dB/km. Designating this parameter by α, we have

• This parameter is generally referred to as the fiber loss or the fiber

attenuation. It depends on several variables, and it is a function of the
wavelength.

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• optical powers are commonly expressed in units of dBm, which is the
decibel power level referred to 1mW.
• a 30-km long optical fiber that has an attenuation of 0.4 dB/km at 1310
nm. Suppose we want to find the optical output power Pout if 200mW of
optical power is launched into the fiber.
• We first express the input power in dBm units:

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with P(0) = Pin and P(z) = Pout the output power level (in dBm) at z = 30 km is

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 Absorption

Absorption is caused by three different mechanisms:

1. Absorption by atomic defects in the glass composition.
2. Extrinsic absorption by impurity atoms in the glass material.
3. Intrinsic absorption by the basic constituent atoms of the fiber material.
• Atomic defects are imperfections in the atomic structure of the fiber
material.
• Examples of these defects include missing molecules, high-density
clusters of atom groups, or oxygen defects in the glass structure.
• Usually, absorption losses arising from these defects are negligible
compared with intrinsic and impurity absorption effects.

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• Radiation damages a material by changing its internal structure.
• The damage effects depend on the energy of the ionizing particles or rays
(e.g., electrons, neutrons, or gamma rays), the radiation flux (dose rate), and
the fluence (particles per square centimeter).
• The total dose a material receives is expressed in units of rad(Si), which is a
measure of radiation absorbed in bulk silicon.
• This unit is defined as 1 rad(Si) = 100 erg/g = 0.01 J/kg.

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 General trend of the effects of ionizing radiation on optical fiber attenuation. (a) Loss increase
during steady irradiation to a total dose of 104 rad (SiO2). (b) Subsequent recovery as a
function of time after radiation has stopped.

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• The basic response of a fiber to ionizing radiation is an increase in attenuation
owing to the creation of atomic defects, or attenuation centers, that absorb
optical energy.
• The higher the radiation level, the larger the attenuation, as Fig. 3.1a
illustrates. However, the attenuation centers will relax or anneal out with time,
as shown in Fig. 3.1b.
• The degree of the radiation effects depends on the dopant materials used in the
fiber. Pure silica fibers or fibers with a low Ge doping and no other dopants
have the lowest radiation-induced losses.

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 Optical fiber attenuation as a function of wavelength yields nominal values of 0.40 dB/km at 1310 nm and 0.25
dB/km at 1550 nm for standard single-mode fiber.
Absorption by water molecules causes the attenuation peak around 1400 nm for standard fiber. The dashed
curve is the attenuation for low-water-peak fiber.

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• The ultraviolet edge of the electron absorption bands of both amorphous and
crystal line materials follow the empirical relationship.

• Here, C and E0 are empirical constants and E is the photon energy.

• The magnitude and characteristic exponential decay of the ultraviolet
absorption are shown in Figure

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 Optical fiber attenuation characteristics
and their limiting mechanisms for a
GeO2-doped low-loss low-water-content
silica fiber.

As shown in Fig, the ultraviolet loss is

small compared with scattering loss in
the near-infrared region

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• Since E is inversely proportional to the wavelength λ, ultraviolet absorption
decays exponentially with increasing wavelength.
• In particular, the ultraviolet loss contribution in dB/km at any wavelength
(given in um) can be expressed empirically (derived from observation or
experiment) as a function of the mole fraction x of GeO2 as

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 Consider two silica fibers that are doped with 6 percent and 18
percent mole fractions of GeO2, respectively. Compare the
ultraviolet absorptions at wavelengths of 0.7um and 1.3um

for the ultraviolet absorption, we have the following:

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 Scattering Losses

• Scattering losses in glass arise from microscopic variations in the material

density, from compositional fluctuations, and from structural inhomogeneities
or defects occurring during fiber manufacture.
• In addition, since glass is made up of several oxides, such as SiO2, GeO2, and
P2O5,compositional fluctuations can occur.
• These two effects give rise to refractive-index variations that occur within the
glass over distances that are small compared with the wavelength.
• These index variations cause a Rayleigh-type scattering of the light.
• Rayleigh scattering in glass is the same phenomenon that scatters light from
the sun in the atmosphere, thereby giving rise to a blue sky.

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• The expressions for scattering-induced attenuation are fairly complex owing
to the random molecular nature and the various oxide constituents of glass.
• For single-component glass the scattering loss at a wavelength λ (given in
um) resulting from density fluctuations can be approximated by (in base e
units)

• Here, n is the refractive index, kB is Boltzmann’s constant, βT is the isothermal

compressibility of the material, and the fictive temperature Tf is the
temperature at which the density fluctuations are frozen into the glass as it
solidifies.

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• Alternatively, the relation (in base e units) has been derived, where p is the
photoelastic coefficient.

• to change this to decibels for optical power attenuation calculations, multiply

these equations by 10 log e = 4.343

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 Bending Losses
Radiative losses occur whenever an optical
fiber undergoes a bend of finite radius of
curvature.
Fibers can be subject to two types of
curvatures:
(a) macroscopic bends
having radii that are large compared with the
fiber diameter, such as those that occur when
a fiber cable turns a corner, and
(b) Random microscopic bends of the fiber
Sketch of the fundamental mode axis that can arise when the fibers are
incorporated into cables
field in a curved optical waveguide.

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• At a certain critical distance xc from the center of the fiber, the field tail would have
to move faster than the speed of light to keep up with the core field. Since this is not
possible, the optical energy in the field tail beyond xc radiates away.
• The amount of optical radiation from a bent fiber depends on the field strength at xc
and on the radius of curvature R. Since higher-order modes are bound less tightly to
the fiber core than lower order modes, the higher-order modes will radiate out of the
fiber first.
• Thus the total number of modes that can be supported by a curved fiber is less than
in a straight fiber. The following expression has been derived for the effective
number of modes Meff that are guided by a curved multimode fiber of radius a:

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where α defines the graded-index profile, Δ is the core-cladding index difference, n2 is
the cladding refractive index, k = 2π/λ is the wave propagation constant, and

is the total number of modes in a straight fiber

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 the percentage of modes at a given curvature R is

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• Another form of radiation loss in optical waveguide results from mode
coupling caused by random microbends of the optical fiber.
• Microbends are repetitive small-scale fluctuations in the radius of curvature of
the fiber axis, as is illustrated in Fig.
• They are caused either by nonuniformities in the manufacturing of the fiber or
by nonuniform lateral pressures created during the cabling of the fiber.
• The latter effect is often referred to as cabling or packaging losses. An
increase in attenuation results from microbending because the fiber curvature
causes repetitive coupling of energy between the guided modes and the leaky
or nonguided modes in the fiber.

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 Signal Dispersion in Fibers

• As shown in Figure, an optical signal weakens from attenuation mechanisms

and broadens due to dispersion effects as it travels along a fiber.
• 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 errors arise when interpreting
the received signal.
• Signal dispersion is a consequence of factors such as intermodal delay (also
called intermodal dispersion), intramodal dispersion, polarization-mode
dispersion, and higher-order dispersion effects.

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 Signal Dispersion in Fibers

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 Intermodal delay

• Intermodal delay (or simply modal delay) appears only in multimode fibers.
• Modal delay is a result of each mode having a different value of the group
velocity at a single frequency.
• From this effect one can derive an intuitive picture of the information carrying
capacity of a multimode fiber.

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 Polarization-Mode Dispersion

• The effects of fiber birefringence on the polarization states of an optical signal are
another source of pulse broadening.
• This is particularly critical for high-rate long-haul transmission links (e.g., 10 and 40
Gb/s over tens of kilometers).
• Birefringence can result from intrinsic factors such as geometric irregularities of the
fiber core or internal stresses on it.
• Deviations of less than 1 percent in the circularity of the core can already have a
noticeable effect in a high-speed light wave system.
• In addition, external factors, such as bending, twisting, or pinching of the fiber, can
also lead to birefringence.
• Since all these mechanisms exist to some extent in any field-installed fiber, there
will be a varying birefringence along its length.

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• A fundamental property of an optical signal is its polarization state.
Polarization refers to the electric field orientation of a light signal, which can
vary significantly along the length of a fiber.
• As shown in Figure signal energy at a given wavelength occupies two
orthogonal polarization modes.
• A varying birefringence along its length will cause each polarization mode to
travel at a slightly different velocity.
• The resulting difference in propagation times between the two
orthogonal polarization modes will result in pulse spreading.
• This is the polarization-mode dispersion (PMD)

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Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering www.cambridge.edu.in
Example-1 A silica optical fiber with a core diameter large enough to be
considered by ray theory analysis has a core refractive index of 1.50 and a
cladding refractive index of 1.47. Determine: (a) the critical angle at the core–
cladding interface; (b) the NA for the fiber; (c) the acceptance angle in air for
the fiber.
Solution: (a) The critical angle φc at the core–cladding interface is given by

(b) the NA for the fiber

(c) the acceptance angle in air for the fiber.

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Example 2 A typical relative refractive index difference for an optical fiber
designed for long distance transmission is 1%. Estimate the NA and the solid
acceptance angle in air for the fiber when the core index is 1.46. Further,
calculate the critical angle at the core–cladding interface within the fiber. It
may be assumed that the concepts of geometric optics hold for the fiber.

Solution: with Δ = 0.01 gives the NA as

For small angles the solid acceptance angle in air ζ is given by:

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for the relative refractive index difference Δ gives:

Hence

The critical angle at the core–cladding interface is:

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 Single Mode fibers:

• Single mode fibers allow propagation of light rays by only one path, as
shown in the figure.
• The core radius is very small. It is of the order of 10µm.
• The launching of optical power into single-mode fiber is very difficult as the
core radius is small.
• It supports larger bandwidth.
• Intermodal dispersion is absent.
• Ideally very low loss.
• It is used for long distance communication.
• Optical source used must be LASER.

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 Cutoff wavelength

• single-mode operation only occurs above a theoretical cutoff

wavelength λc given by:

• Where Vc is the cutoff normalized frequency.

• Hence λc is the wavelength above which a particular fiber becomes
single-moded.

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 • Now consider:

• Thus for step index fiber where Vc = 2.405, the cutoff wavelength is
given by

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 Ex-8 Determine the cutoff wavelength for a step index fiber to exhibit
single-mode operation when the core refractive index and radius are 1.46
and 4.5μm, respectively, with the relative index difference being 0.25%.

• Solution: Using Eq.

with Vc = 2.405 gives:

• Hence the fiber is single-moded to a wavelength of 1214 nm.

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 Mode Field diameter (MFD):

• For single mode fibers operating near the cut-off wavelength λ𝑐 , the
field can be approximated by “Gaussian distribution”.
• In single mode optical fiber, light-ray propagates as a single Gaussian
pulse along the length of the fiber with maximum intensity at the
center of the fiber core.
• Figure shows the electric field distribution E(r) as a function of radial
distance from fiber axis.

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 • In this case the MFD is generally taken as the distance between the
opposite 1/e = 0.37 field amplitude points and the power 1/e2 = 0.135
points in relation to the corresponding values on the fiber axis, as
shown in Figure
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