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OpticalCommunications

UnitIV

UNIT 4
1. What is splicing? Explain about fusion splicing?
Ans: Splicing
A permanent joint formed between two individual optical fibers in the field is known as
splicing. The fiber splicing is used to establish optical fiber links, where smaller fiber lengths are
needed to be joined and where there is no requirement for repeated connection and
disconnection.
Splicing can be divided into two broad categories depending on the splicing technique
utilized. These are fusion-splicing, mechanical or welding splicing.
Fusion Splicing
Fusion splicing of single fibers involves the heating of the two prepared fiber ends to their
fusing point with sufficient axial pressure between the two optical fibers. It is essential that the
stripped fiber ends are adequately positioned and clamped with the aid of inspection microscope.
The most widely used heating technique is an electric arc. This technique offers advantage
of consistent, easily controlled heat with adaptability for use under field conditions.
The welding of 2 fibers can be shown as illustrated in the following figure.

The figure shows basic arc fusion process, which involves the rounding of the fiber ends
with a low energy discharge before pressing the fibers together and fusing with a stronger arc.
This technique is called perfusion. It removes the requirement for fiber end preparation. It
has been utilized with multimode fibers giving average splice losses of 0.09 dB.

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Fusion splicing of single mode fibers with arc diameters between 5 and 10 um present
problems of more critical fiber alignment (lateral offsets of less than 1 um are required for low
loss joints).
Splice uncertain losses below 0.3 dB may be achieved due to self alignment phenomenon
which partially compensates for any lateral offset.
The drawback with fusion splicing is that the heat necessary to fuse the fibers may weaken the
fiber in the vicinity of the splice.
The tensile strength' of the fused fiber may be as low as 30% as that of the uncoated fiber before
fusion. The fiber fracture occurs in the heat affected zone adjacent to the fused joint. The reduced
tensile strength is attributed, to the combined effects of surface damage caused by handling,
surface defect growth during heating and induced stresses due to changes in chemical
composition. Hence it is necessary that splice is packaged so as to reduce tensile loading upon
the fiber in the vicinity of the splice.

2. Explain about adhesive splicing?

Ans:
Adhesive Splicing: A common method involves the use of ah accurately produced rigid
alignment tube into which the prepared fiber ends are permanently, bonded. This snug tube
splice may utilize a glass or ceramic capillary with an inner diameter just large enough to accept
the optical fibers. Transparent adhesive (e.g. epoxy resin) is injected through a transverse bore in
die capillary to give mechanical sealing and index matching of the splice. However, in general,
snug tube splices exhibit problems with capillary tolerance requirements.

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A mechanical splicing-technique which avoids the critical tolerance requirements of the snug
tube splice is shown in figure 4.3.This loose tube splice uses an over sized square section metal
tube which easily accepts the prepared fiber ends. Transparent adhesive is first insulated in the
tube followed by the fibers. The splice is self aligning when the fibers are curved in the same
plane, forcing the fiber ends simultaneously into the same corner of tube.

Other common splicing techniques involve the use of grooves to secure the fibers to be jointed.
A simple method utilized a V-groove into which the two prepared fiber ends are pressed. The Vgroove splice which is shown in figure gives alignment of the prepared fiber ends through
insertion in the groove. The splice is made permanent by securing the fibers in the V-groove with
epoxy resin (i.e., transparent adhesive).

3. Explain about Multiple splices?

Ans:
Multiple splices:
Multiple simultaneous fusions splicing of an array of fibers in a ribbon cable has been
demonstrated for both multimode and single mode fibers. In both cases a five fiber ribbon was
prepared by scoring and breaking prior to pressing the fiber ends on to a contact plate to avoid
difficulties, with varying gaps between the fibers to be fused

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The most common technique employed for multiple simultaneous splicing involves mechanical
splicing of an array of fibers, usually in a ribbon cable. A V-groove multiple splice secondary
element comprising etched silicon chips that has been used extensively for splicing multimode
fibers. In this technique a twelve fiber ribbon splice is prepared by stripping the ribbon and
coating material from the fibers. Then the twelve fibers are laid into the trapezoidal grooves of a
silicon chip using a comb structure, as shown in figure. The top silicon chip is then applied prior
to applying epoxy to the chip-ribbon interface. Finally, after curing, the front end face is
grounded and polished
Major advantages of this method are the substantial reduction splicing time (by more than a
factor of 10) per fiber and the increased robustness of the final connection.

5. Draw the schematic diagram of high radiance surface emitting LED and
explain the working in detail?
Ans: High radiance is obtained by restricting the emission to a small active region within the
device. A well is etched in a substrate (GaAs) to avoid the heavy absorption of the emitter
radiation and to accommodate the fiber. These structures have a low thermal impedance in the
active region and hence radiance emission into the fiber. Double hetero structures are used to get
increased efficiency and less optical absorption. The structure of a high radiance etched well DH

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(Double Hetero structure) surface emitter which is also known as burrus type LED is as shown in
figure (4.5).

This structure emits light in band of 0.8 to 0.9 um wavelength. The plane of the active light
emitting region is made perpendicular to the fiber axis. The fiber is cemented in a well matched
through the substrate of the fiber so that maximum emitted light is coupled to the fiber. Due to
large band gap conjoining area, the internal absorption is less and the reflection coefficient at the
back crystal face is high, hence forward radiance is good. The active area in circle is of 50m in
diameter and up to 2.5m thick. The emission from this active area is isotropic with 120 half
power beam width is used for practical purpose. Isotropic pattern from a surface emitter is
lambertian pattern.
The source is equally bright when viewed from any direction but power diminishes as cos
where $ is the angle between viewing direction and to the normal to the surface. Power is down
to 50%, when = 60, so that the total half power beam width is 120. The power coupled into a
multimode step index fiber may be estimated from the relationship.

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PC =(1-r)ARD (NA)2 ..(1)

Where,

PC = Power coupled into fiber

r = Fresnel reflection coefficient
A = Emission area of source
RD = Radiance of the source
NA = Numerical aperture

Power coupled into the fiber depends on

(i) Distance and alignment between emission area and the fiber.
(ii) Medium between the emitting area and the fiber.
(iii) Emission pattern of SLED
Addition of Epoxy resin in the etched well reduces the refractive index mismatch and increases
the external power efficiency of the device. Hence the power coupled in the double hetero
structure surface emitters are more than Pc(optical power) that is given by equation (1), For
graded index fiber-direct coupling requires the source diameter of about one half the fiber core
diameter

6. Draw the schematic of edge emitting double hetero junction LED and
explain its working in detail?
Ans: Double Hetero junction Laser
If a single p-n junction diode is fabricated from suitable single crystal semiconductor material it
exhibits photo emissive properties. It is known as 'homo junction' p-n diode. However the
emissive properties of a junction diode can be improved considerably by the use of 'hetero
junction'. A hetero junction is an interface between two adjoining crystal semiconductors having
different values of band gap energies. Devices are fabricated with hetero junction are said to
have hetero structures.
They are of two types,
(i) Isotopes such as n-n or p-p type
(ii) Anisotope such as p-n type.
The isotope p-p junction has a potential barrier within the structure. The structure is capable of
confining min carriers to small active region called cavity. It effectively reduces the diffusion
length of the carrier and thus the volume of the structure where radioactive recombination may
occur.

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OpticalCommunications

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Figures show the schematic layer structure, energy band diagram and refractive index
profile, for a double hetero junction injection laser diode with biasing. The laser oscillations take
place in the central p-type GaAs region which is known as active layer.
There is hetero junction at the both sides of the active layer. A forward bias voltage is applied by
connecting the positive electrode of the power supply voltage to the P-side of the structure and
negative electrode to the n-side when a voltage which is almost equal to the band gap energy.
The hetero junctions are used to provide potential barrier in the injection laser. In this structure it
is possible to obtain both carrier and optical containment to the active layer.

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OpticalCommunications

UnitIV

Broad Area Double Heterojunction Laser (DH Laser)

The above figure represents the layer structure of a broad area DH. The GaAs layers acts as
active layer which is sandwiched between p-type AZGaAs and n-A/GaAs layer and these two
layers act as the confinement layers. Light is emitted from the central GaAs active layer through
the front and back side of the device.
In the case of the DH broad area laser structure, the optical confinement in the vertical direction
is achieved by the refractive index at the hetero junction interfaces between the active layer and
the containment layers, but the laser .action takes places across the whole width of the device. In
a broad area laser the sides of the cavity are formed by simple roughening the ends of the device
to reduce the unwanted emission and limit the horizontal transverse modes.
Stripe Geometry Laser
In order to overcome the difficulties in a broad area laser structure, the stripe geometry laser
structure has developed and in this structure the active area does not enter upto the edges of the
device.

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A common method is used to introduce the stripe geometry to the structure which provides the
optical contaminant in the horizontal plane as shown in the figure above. The stripe geometry is
usually formed by creating a high resistance area on either side of the stripe by 'Proton
bombardment' technique or by oxide oscillation. The stripe usually acts as a guiding mechanism
which avoids all major difficulties encountered in the case of a broad area laser. The contact
stripe provides the balance of guiding single transverse mode operation in a direction parallel to
the junction plane, whereas broad area devices allow multiple mode operation in this horizontal
plane. The width of the stripe generally ranges from 2.0 to 65 mm and stripe laser find wide
application in fiber communications.

7. What is population inversion and how it can be achieved? And discuss the
requirements of population inversion in order that stimulated emission may
dominate over spontaneous emission. Illustrate your answer with energy level
diagram of laser?
Ans:Population Inversion
The lifetime of an atom in excited state is of the order of 10~8 seconds. So. before an excited
atom can be stimulated to emit a photon, it is most likely to make a spontaneous emission. The
photons emitted by a spontaneous emission are not coherent.
The ratio of the number n' of excited atoms to that of n in the ground state is given by the
Boltzmann's equation.

n/n =e-W/kT
W = Energy difference between excited state and ground state;

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K = Boltzmann constant
T = Kelvin temperature.
Consider three level system in which three active energy levels E1, E2 and E3 are present and
population in those energy levels are N, $1 and 7V3 respectively. In normal conditions E1< E2 <
E3 and N1 > N2 >N3
E1 is the ground state, its lifetime is unlimited.E3 is highest energy state, its lifetime is very
less and it is the most unstable state. E. is in excited state and has more life time. Hence E2 is a
meta stable state. When suitable form of energy is supplied to the system in a suitable way, then
the atoms excite from ground state (E1) to excited states (E2 and E3). Due to un stability, Excited
atoms will come back to ground state after the Lifetime of the respective energy states E2 and E3
If thisprocess is continued then atoms will excite continuouslytoE2 andE3
Because E3 is the most unstable state, atoms will fall into E2 immediately. At some stage the
population in E2, will become more than the population in ground state. This situation is called
population inversion and is shown in figure 4.11
There are several ways of pumping a laser and producing population inversion necessary for
stimulated emission to occur. Most commonly used methods are as follows

There are several ways of pumping a laser and producing population inversion necessary
for stimulated emission to occur. Most commonly used methods are as follows.
1. Optical pumping
2. Electric discharge
3. Inelastic atom to atom collision
4. Direct conversion
5. Chemical reactions.
The emission process can occur in two ways
(i)

Spontaneous Emission

The electrons in the excited state E2 are unstable. They return back to the lower energy
state without any external influence. This process leads to spontaneous emission.

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(ii)

Stimulated Emission
When an external photon of energy which is equal to the energy difference between two
states (E2 E1) hit the excited electron, this excited electron return to the ground state (E1) by
emitting a photon of energy hv12. This emission is known as stimulated emission.
Semiconductor laser diodes are preferred over LED for the optical fiber
communication systems requiring bandwidth greater than approximately 200 MHz.
Laser diodes have
(i) Response time less than 1 ns
(ii) Optical bandwidth of 2nm
(iii) High coupling efficiency

For the efficient functioning of laser the method of exciting electrons in atoms is from,
1. Lower energy levels to higher energy levels.
2. Lower energy levels to large population inversion high energy level.

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OpticalCommunications

UnitIV

The stimulated emission in semiconductor laser arises from optical transitions between
distributions of energy state in the valence and conduction bands. Stimulated emission is
achieved in an intrinsic semiconductor by the injection of electrons into the material. Figure
represents the electron states for an intrinsic direct band gap semiconductor at absolute zero.
The population when the conduction band contains no electrons are injected into the material, fill
the lower energy states in the conduction band gap upto the injection energy or quasi fermi level
for electrons.
Since the charge is neutrally conserved with the material, an equal density of holes is created in
the top of the valence band by the absence of electrons as shown in the figure 1(b). Since more
electrons are there in valence band than the conduction band population inversion is achieved.

8. Obtain the expression for the 3dB modulation bandwidth of LED and
discuss the importance of radiative recombination life time?
Ans: The expression for the 3 dB modulation bandwidth of LED in optical communication may
be obtained in either electrical and optical terms.If we consider the associated electrical circuitry
in an optical fiber communication system to use the electrical definition, where the electrical
signal power has dropped to half of its constant value due to the modulated portion of the optical
signal. Hence, this corresponds to the electrical 3 dB frequency at which the output electrical
power is reduced by 3 dB with respect to the input electrical power. We can also consider the
high frequency 3 dB point, when the optical source operates down to D.C.
The expression for the electrical bandwidth can be obtained from the ratio of the electrical
output power to the electrical input power in decibels and is given as

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OpticalCommunications

UnitIV

REdB = 10log10(Electrical output power /Electrical input power)

= 10log10

= 10 log10
The electrical 3 dB points occur when the ratio of electrical powers shown in above expression is
2 Hence, it follows that this must Occur when,

/2
Thus this expression depicts that the bandwidth of the electrical regime may be defined by the
frequency when the output current has dropped to /2 (or) 0.707 of the input current of the
system.
Optical bandwidth can be obtained from the ratio of the optical power output to optical
power input in decibels ROdB is given by
ROdB = 10 log 10

=10 log 10

Hence, the optical 3 dB points occur when the currents is equal to 0.5,hence
.
Therefore In optical regime the bandwidth is defined by the frequency at which the output
current has dropped to 0.5 of the input current to the system.
The Modulation bandwidth of LED is generally determined by three methods ,They are
1.
2.

The doping level in the active layer,

Due to the injected carriers, the reduction in radiative lifetime.

3.

The parasitic capacitance of the device.

If we assume that the parasitic capacitance is negligible, then the speed at which an LED can be
directly current modulated is fundamentally limited by the recombination lifetime of the carriers,

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OpticalCommunications

P
P

UnitIV

1
1

Where

= Optical output power of the device

=Angular modulation frequency.

= Injected carrier lifetime in the recombination region
P

D.C. optical output power for the same drive current

9. Discuss the major requirements of an optical source for use in optical

communication systems?
Ans: The development of efficient semiconductor optical sources along with low-loss optical
fibers, led to substantial improvements in fiber optic communications. Semiconductor optical
sources have the physical characteristics and performance properties necessary for successful
implementations of fiber optic systems. It is desirable that optical sources must be,
1. Compatible in size to low-loss optical fibers by having a small light emitting which are
capable of launching light into fiber.
2. Launch sufficient optical power into the optical fiber to overcome fiber attenuation and
connection losses allowing for signal detection at the receiver.
3. Emit light at wavelengths that minimize optical fiber loss and dispersion.
4. Optical sources should have a narrow spectral width to minimize dispersion.
5. Allow for direct modulation of optical output power.
Maintain stable operation in changing environmental conditions (such as temperature).
Cost less and be more reliable than electrical devices, permitting fiber optic communication
systems to compete with conventional systems. Semiconductor optical sources suitable for fiber
optic systems range from inexpensive Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) to more expensive
semiconductor lasers. Semiconductor LEDs and laser diodes are the principle light sources used
in fiber optics.
Semiconductor sources are designed to operate at wavelengths (i.e., 850 nm, 1300 nm and 1500
nm) that minimize optical fiber absorption and maximum system bandwidth. By designing an
optical source to operate at specific wavelengths, absorption from impurities in the optical fiber
such as hydroxyl ions (OH-) can be minimized. Maximizing system bandwidth involves

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designing fibers and sources that minimize chromatic and inter modal dispersion at the intended
operational wavelength.

10. Compare the advantageous and disadvantageous of LED and Explain the
key process involved in the LASER operation?
Ans:
1. Simple Fabrication: There are no mirror facets and is some structures no striped geometry
2. Cost: The simpler construction of LED leas to much reduced cost which is always likely to be
maintained.
3.
Reliability
The LED does not exhibit catastrophic degradation and has proved to be less sensitive to
gradual degradation than the injection laser.
4.
Simpler Drive Circuitry
This is due to lower drive currents and reduced temperature dependance which makes
temperature compensation circuits unnecessary.
5.
Linearity
Ideally, the LED has a linear light output against current characteristics unlike the injection
laser.
Disadvantage
An LED radiates rather dispersed light, which makes coupling this light into an optical fiber a
problem.
The key processes involved in laser action are as given below.
(i) Absorption.
(ii) Spontaneous emission.
(iii) Stimulated emission.
These three key processes are represented by 2-energy level diagrams.
Where, E1 = Energy of ground state.
E2 = Energy of excited state.
(i)

Absorption

When transition occurs between two states, then it involves the emission and absorption of
energy in the form of photon energy hvn = E2 E 1

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In the above figure we can see that electron in 'E1 absorbs the photon energy and is excited to
state lE2' when photon of energy hvn is incident on the system.
(ii) Spontaneous Emission

Charge carriers are unstable in excited state so they try to come back in stable state and this
is possible by emission of radiation. This emission takes place when energy hvv is released. As it
occurs without any external stimulation, it is known as spontaneous emission.
(iii) Stimulated Emission

Here in this type of emission when a photon of energy hv12 is striking on system while the
electron is still in its excited state, then the electron is stimulated so that it drops on to ground
state and gives a photon of energy hvn and the emitted photon will be in phase with incident
photon. The resultant emission is called as stimulated emission.