Block Diagram of Optical Communication System
Block Diagram of Optical Communication System
Block Diagram of Optical Communication System
Like all other communication system, the primary objective of optical fiber communication system also is to transfer
the signal containing information (voice, data, video) from the source to the destination. The general block diagram
of optical fiber communication system is shown in the figure9.
The source provides information in the form of electrical signal to the transmitter. The electrical stage of the
transmitter drives an optical source to produce modulated light wave carrier. Semiconductor LASERs or LEDs are
usually used as optical source here. The information carrying light wave then passes through the transmission
medium i.e. optical fiber cables in this system. Now it reaches to the receiver stage where the optical detector
demodulates the optical carrier and gives an electrical output signal to the electrical stage. The common types of
optical detectors used are photodiodes (p-i-n, avalanche), phototransistors, photoconductors etc. Finally the
electrical stage gets the real information back and gives it to the concerned destination.
Transmitter section :
The main parts of the transmitter section are a source (either a LED or a LASER), efficient coupling means to
couple the output power to the fiber, a modulation circuit and a level controller for LASERs. In present days, for
longer repeater spacing, the use of single mode fibers and LASERs are seeming to be essential whereas the earlier
transmitters operated within 0.8m to 0.9m wavelength range, used double hetero structure LASER or LED as
optical sources. High coupling losses result from direct coupling of the source to optical fibers. For LASERs, there
are two types of lenses being used for this purpose namely discrete lenses and integral lenses.
Receiver section :
Figure12 enlightens the general structure of a receiver section. It is clear that it includes Photodetector, low noise
front end amplifier, voltage amplifier and a decision making circuit to get the exact information signal back. High
impedance amplifier and Trans impedance amplifier are the two popular configurations of front end amplifier, the
design of which is very critical for sensible performance of the receiver. The two most common photodetectors are
p-i-n diodes and avalanche photodiodes. Quantum efficiency , responsivity and speed of response are the key
parameters behind the decision of photodetectors. The most important requirements of an optical receiver are
sensitivity, bit rate transparency, bit pattern independence, dynamic range, acquisition time etc. As the noise
contributed by receiver is higher than other elements in the system so, we must put a keen check on it.
Optical fiber is a dielectric waveguide or medium in which information (voice, data or video) is transmitted through
a glass or plastic fiber, in the form of light. The basic structure of an optical fiber is shown in figure 1. It consists of
a transparent core with a refractive index n1 surrounded by a transparent cladding of a slightly less refractive index
n2. The refractive index of cladding is less than 1%, lower than that of core. Typical values for example are a core
refractive index of 1.47 and a cladding index of 1.46. The cladding supports the waveguide structure, protects the
core from absorbing surface contaminants and when adequately thick, substantially reduces the radiation loss to the
surrounding air. Glass core fibers tend to have low loss in comparison with plastic core fibers. Additionally, most of
the fibers are encapsulated in an elastic, abrasion-resistant plastic material which mechanically isolates the fibers
from small geometrical irregularities and distortions. A set of guided electromagnetic waves, also called the modes
of the waveguide, can describe the propagation of light along the waveguide. Only a certain number of modes are
capable of propagating through the waveguide.
Figure 1.
2.1 Principle of ray propagation :
Figure 8.
2.3.5 Dispersion :
It is defined as the spreading of the light pulses as they travel down the fiber. Because of the spreading effect, pulse
tend to overlap, making them unreadable by the receiver which is a critical problem to deal with. It creates distortion
for both digital and analog transmission. Dispersion limits the maximum possible bandwidth attainable within a
particular fiber. Pulse broadening is a very common problem created by dispersion in digital transmission. To avoid
it, the digital bit rate must be less than the reciprocal of the broadened pulse duration.
The visible optical carrier waves or light has been commonly used for communication purpose for many years.
Alexander Graham Bell transmitted a speech information using a light beam for the first time in 1880. Just after four
years of the invention of the telephone Bell proposed his photophone which was capable of providing a speech
transmission over a distance of 200m. In the year 1910 Hondros and Debye carried out a theoretical study and in
1920 Schriever reported an experimental work. Although in the early part of twentieth century optical
communication was going through some research work but it was being used only in the low capacity
communication links due to severe affect of disturbances in the atmosphere and lack of suitable optical sources.
However, low frequency (longer wavelength) electromagnetic waves like radio and microwaves proved to be much
more useful for information transfer in atmosphere, being far less affected by the atmospheric disturbances. The
relative frequencies and their corresponding wavelengths can be known from the electromagnetic spectrum and it is
understandable that optical frequencies offer an increase in the potential usable bandwidth by a factor of around
10000 over high frequency microwave transmission. With the LASER coming into the picture the research interest
of optical communication got a stimulation. A powerful coherent light beam together with the possibility of
modulation at high frequencies was the key feature of LASER. Kao and Hockham proposed the transmission of
information via dielectric waveguides or optical fiber cables fabricated from glass almost simultaneously in 1966. In
the earlier stage optical fibers exhibited very high attenuation (almost 1000 dB/km)which was incomparable with
coaxial cables having attenuation of around 5 to 10dB/km. Nevertheless, within ten years optical fiber losses were
reduced to below 5dB/km and suitable low loss jointing techniques were perfected as well. Parallely with the
development of the optical fibers other essential optical components like semiconductor optical sources (i.e.
injection LASERs and LEDs) and detectors (i.e. photodiodes and phototransistors) were also going through rigorous
research process. Primarily the semiconductor LASERs exhibited very short lifetime of at most a few hours but by
1973 and 1977 lifetimes greater than 1000 hr and 7000 hr respectively were obtained through advanced device
structure.
The first generation optical fiber links operated at around 850 nm range. Existing GaAs based optical sources,
silicon photo detectors, and multimode fibers were used in these links and quiet understandably they suffered from
intermodal dispersion and fiber losses. With the advent of optical sources and photo detectors capable of operating at
1300 nm, a shift in transmission wavelength from 850nm to 1300nm was possible which inturn resulted in a
substantial increase in the repeaterless transmission distance for long haul telephone trunks. Systems operating at
1550nm provided lowest attenuation and these links routinely carry traffic at around 2.5Gb/s over 90 km
repeaterless distance. The introduction of optical amplifiers like Erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA) and
Praseodymium-doped fiber amplifiers (PDFA) had a major thrust to fiber transmission capacity. The use of
Wavelength Division Multiplexing along with EDFA proved to be a real boost in fiber capacity. Hence developments
in fiber technology have been carried out rapidly over recent years. Glass material for even longer wavelength
operation in the mid-infrared (2000 to 5000nm) and far-infrared (8000 to 12000nm) regions have been developed.
Furthermore, the implementation of active optoelectronic devices and associated fiber components (i.e. splices,
connectors, couplers etc.) has also accelerated ahead with such speed that optical fiber communication technology
would seem to have reached a stage of maturity within its developmental path.
2. A to Z of OPTICAL FIBERS :
Optical fiber is a dielectric waveguide or medium in which information (voice, data or video) is transmitted through
a glass or plastic fiber, in the form of light. The basic structure of an optical fiber is shown in figure 1. It consists of
a transparent core with a refractive index n1 surrounded by a transparent cladding of a slightly less refractive index
n2. The refractive index of cladding is less than 1%, lower than that of core. Typical values for example are a core
refractive index of 1.47 and a cladding index of 1.46. The cladding supports the waveguide structure, protects the
core from absorbing surface contaminants and when adequately thick, substantially reduces the radiation loss to the
surrounding air. Glass core fibers tend to have low loss in comparison with plastic core fibers. Additionally, most of
the fibers are encapsulated in an elastic, abrasion-resistant plastic material which mechanically isolates the fibers
from small geometrical irregularities and distortions. A set of guided electromagnetic waves, also called the modes
of the waveguide, can describe the propagation of light along the waveguide. Only a certain number of modes are
capable of propagating through the waveguide.
Figure 1.
2.1 Principle of ray propagation :
This is the most interesting thing about optical fiber cables. Such an indispensable part of modern day
communication system works on an extremely simple property of light ray i.e. Total Internal Reflection. As we all
know that when light ray is passing from denser (refractive index is higher) dielectric medium to a rarer (refractive
index is lower) dielectric medium then from the point of incidence at the interface it bends away from the normal.
When the incidence angle is sufficiently high such that the angle of refraction is 90 then it is called critical angle.
Now if light ray falls at the interface of the two mediums at an angle greater than the critical angle then the light ray
gets reflected back to the originating medium with high efficiency (around 99.9%) i.e. total internal reflection
occurs. With the help of innumerable total internal reflections light waves are propagated along the fiber with low
loss as shown in figure2. In this context, two parameters are very crucial namely Acceptance Angle and Numerical
Aperture.
Figure 2.
Acceptance angle is the maximum angle at which light may enter the fiber in order to be propagated and is denoted
by a in figure3. The relationship between the acceptance angle and the refractive indices of the three media
involved-core, cladding and air, leads to the definition of Numerical Aperture which is given by
NA = (n1-n2) = n0 sin a where n0 is the refractive index of air.
The light ray shown in figure3 is known as a meridional ray as it passes through the axis of the fiber.
However, another category of ray exists which is transmitted without passing through the fiber axis and follows a
helical path through the fiber.
Figure 3.
2.3.5 Dispersion :
It is defined as the spreading of the light pulses as they travel down the fiber. Because of the spreading effect, pulse
tend to overlap, making them unreadable by the receiver which is a critical problem to deal with. It creates distortion
for both digital and analog transmission. Dispersion limits the maximum possible bandwidth attainable within a
particular fiber. Pulse broadening is a very common problem created by dispersion in digital transmission. To avoid
it, the digital bit rate must be less than the reciprocal of the broadened pulse duration.
profile (parabolic profile in most graded index fibers), we can drastically reduce intermodal dispersion.
Figure 6b
2.4 Types of Optical Fibers :
According to the refractive index profile optical fibers can be divided into two categories namely Step index fibers
and Graded index fibers which are described below.
2.4.1 Step index fibers :
If the refractive index profile of a fiber makes a step change at the core cladding interface then it is known as step
index fiber. A multimode step index fiber is shown in figure7(a), the core diameter of which is around 50m. Some
physical parameters like relative refractive index, index difference, core radius etc determines the maximum number
of guided modes possible in a multimode fiber. A single mode fiber has a core diameter of the order of 2 to 10m
and the propagation of light wave is shown in figure7(b). It has the distinct advantage of low intermodal dispersion
over multimode step index fiber. On the other hand multimode step index fibers allow the use of spatially incoherent
optical sources and low tolerance requirements on fiber connectors.
Figure7.
2.4.2 Graded index fibers :
The graded index fibers have decreasing core index n(r) with radial distance from a maximum value of n1 at the axis
to a constant value n2 beyond the core radius a in the cladding as shown in figure8. The graded index fiber gives
best results for multimode optical propagation for parabolic refractive index profile. Due to this special kind of
refractive index profile multimode graded index fibers exhibit less intermodal dispersion than its counterpart i.e.
multimode step index fibers.
Figure 8.
It is notable that the optical carrier may be modulated by either analog or digital information signal. In
digital optical fiber communication system the information is suitably encoded prior to the drive circuit stage of
optical source. Similarly at the receiver end a decoder is used after amplifier and equalizer stage.
Now there are a number of factors that pose some limitations in transmitter design such as electrical power
requirement, speed of response, linearity, thermal behavior, spectral width etc.