CHAPTER - 3

Numerical method for Dispersion

Calculation and Effect of index
Imperfection on Dispersion in
Single-mode fibers
3.1. Introduction

Dispersion in single-mode fibers has been a subject of paramount interest in the

field of optical telecommunication. At present, much attention has been focussed on
single-mode optical fibers with zero dispersion around 1.5 pm wavelength because at this
wavelength the attenuation is the lowest [14], Even such fibers, through which the
fundamental mode propagates, are not free from pulse distortion due to the presence of
intramodal dispersion [1], The intramodal dispersion can be classified into two
categories: (i) material dispersion and (ii) waveguide dispersion. Material dispersion is
due to the dependence of refractive indexes of the core and cladding materials on the
wavelength of light used while the waveguide dispersion arises due to the explicit
dependence of propagation constant of the fundamental mode on the wavelength of light.
As the source of light used has a finite spectral width, however small, these two
dispersions are always present. The total dispersion in such fibers can be approximately
written as the sum of material and waveguide dispersions [1], Fortunately in fiber optic
communication systems operating at a wavelength around 1,3pm, the material dispersion
is exactly counterbalanced by the waveguide dispersion resulting in zero total dispersion
4

in the fiber. These fibers, known as zero dispersion fibers (ZDF), were initially used as
the transmission medium in the telecommunication systems and still remain installed in a
major part of the telecommunication network. The purpose of using ZDF is to increase
the repeater spacing as well as the bit rate. Even if one utilizes ZDF, the repeater spacing
is still limited by the fiber attenuation [1], which is not the minimum at this wavelength
of operation. Thus, the next step was to shift the zero dispersion wavelength to 1.55pm
where the fiber attenuation is the lowest [14]. This has been achieved by suitably
tailoring the various parameters of the fiber, such as, the core radius, the relative
refractive index difference between core and cladding, the refractive index profile etc.
[8,15,18], At present, these fibers are known as dispersion shifted fibers (DSF). The
current trend is to use DSF as the transmission medium in all fiber optic
telecommunication links.

33
 Even if pulse broadening due to dispersion is eliminated by utilizing DSF,
refractive index nonlinearity can cause severe signal distortion in a non-soliton regime.
This refractive index nonlinearity arises due to weak dependence of refractive index of
the fiber material on intensity of light and results in different nonlinear effects, such as,
self phase modulation (SPM), cross phase modulation (XPM), four wave mixing (FWM),
Stimulated Raman Scattering (SRS) and Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) etc. [43-
47,80], To overcome these problems, fiber design criterion requires reducing the
nonlinear effects. The nonlinear part of the refractive index is inversely proportional to
the effective area of the fiber. So, a single-mode fiber with a large effective area implies
smaller nonlinear optical effects and hence less signal degradation. Thus came into
existence a new type of fiber referred to as large effective area single-mode fibers
(LEASMF) [81]. Based on their dispersion characteristics the LEA fibers can be broadly
classified into (a) large effective area dispersion flattened fibers (LEADFF) [82], (b)
large effective area dispersion shifted fibers (LEADSF) and (c) large effective area
nonzero dispersion shifted fibers (LEANZDSF) [83], Further, the LEADSF are classified ,
into (i) raised core index LEADSF which was first designed by Nouchi et al. in 1995 [84]
and depressed core index LEADSF which was first designed by Liu et al. in 1996 [85],

The preceding paragraphs indicate that based on dispersion characteristics, the

fiber design criterion has evolved considerably over the years. While designing these
fibers, the computation of dispersion plays a vital role. It has been shown by one of us
[18] that, for all practical purposes, dispersion computed by the numerical solution of
scalar wave equation differs negligibly from that obtained by the extensive computer
oriented numerical solution of the vector wave equation. Thus, in the present work, we
have utilized the scalar wave equation for the computation of dispersion. A number of
methods have been proposed from time to time by different authors to compute
dispersion from the numerical solution of the scalar wave equation. Of these, the method
due to Sharma et al. (henceforward referred to as SSG method) [16] seems to be
reasonably straightforward. This method has been presented in brief in Appendix A. It
involves the differentiation of the scalar wave equation twice with respect to the
normalized frequency associated with the fiber. Thus, the method requires sophisticated

34
algorithm and the development of a tricky computer program. The aim of the present
work is three fold: first, to propose a numerical method by simplifying the SSG method
so that the differentiation of the scalar wave equation twice with respect to the
normalized frequency is avoided; second, to investigate some interesting results on
dispersion which, to our knowledge, have not yet been done and then to study the effect
of imperfections in the refractive index profile on these results. The third step is to test
the accuracy of our recently proposed single parameter variational approximation [6] for
the LPoi mode in predicting the preceding results and effects. In section 3.2 we have
presented an outline of our method. Section 3.3 presents some new interesting results on
the dependence of dispersion on fiber core radius, which we have obtained using our
method. These results are confirmed by comparing with the results obtained by the SSG
method. Utilizing our method, we have investigated the effect of imperfection in
refractive index profile on total dispersion and have presented these in section 3.4. In the
same section, we have shown that all these interesting results presented in this as well as
the previous section can also be predicted with a high degree of accuracy by using the
single parameter variational approximation of ref. [6], Concluding remarks are presented
in section 3.5.

The work presented in this chapter has resulted in another publication [20],

3.2. The proposed numerical method

We rewrite the refractive index profile of an arbitrarily graded index fiber

presented in Eq.(1.5) in the following form using different notations for the cladding
index and maximum refractive index in the core :

n2(R) = n\i + (n2C0 n2d) F(R), 0<R<ao (3.1)

where n co is the maximum refractive index in the core and n ciis the uniform refractive
index of the cladding.

35
 In the following paragraphs, we describe the present numerical method of
computing total dispersion.

The total dispersion D, in a single-mode fiber can be expressed as [1]:

Xd\
dX2

where X and c are respectively the wavelength and velocity of light in free space.
ne=(p/ko) is the effective index of the fundamental mode propagating in the fiber, /? is
the modal propagation constant and ko (= 2%!X) is the free space wave number. Thus, to
compute Dt, it is necessary to obtain ne as a function of X and then calculate the second
derivative of ne with respect to X. To compute the second derivative of ne with respect to
X, we have utilized the following three point formula

d\ [ne (A + AA) - 2ne (A) + ne(A- AA)]

dA2 (AA)2 . K' *

Thus one needs the computation of ne at three distinct wavelengths, (X- AA), X
and (A + AA). The value of AA is carefully chosen to obtain the desired accuracy. Thus,

an essential part of our numerical method is the computation of ne at a desired A which

we describe as follows.

The input parameters related to the optical fiber are A, a, F(R) and the grading
parameter 6 = (n2C0 - n2ci ) / n2co , where A is the desired wavelength at which total
dispersion is to be computed. At this wavelength, n ci is computed utilizing the modified
Sellmeier’s formula [15] presented below.

nd(A)=C0+C,A2+C2A4 +
—£l__ + 4c 5c (3.4)
(A2-/) (A2 -/)2 + (A2 -/)3

36
where
Co= 1.4508554, Ci =-0.0031268, C2 = -0.0000381,

C3 = 0.0030270, C4 = -0.0000779, C5 = 0.0000018,

1 = 0.035 and X is measured in pm.

Then the maximum refractive index within core, nco, is calculated for the given 8 using

nco = nci/(l-Sf2 (3.5)

Once n co and n ci are known, the value of normalized frequency V is obtained

from the following expression :

V = ak0 (n2co - n2ci )m (3.6a)

The next step of our method is to obtain the well-known W parameter of the fiber
defined as

W = a(02 - k02n2d)m = (V2-U2)m (3.6b)

and to do so, we use the following radial wave equation satisfied by the LPoi mode field

V(R):

VD 1 fKU
=-$■ + -—+[V2F(R) - W2 f¥(R) = 0
dR2 RdR 1 W J W

Following SSG method [16] we make the following substitution

37
 W(R)
G(R) = (3.8)
W(R)

which transforms Eq.(3.7) to the following first order differential equation:

V
£^ = _G2_^ + [F2F(i?)_^2l (3.9)
dR R 1 w J

The prime in Eq.(3.8) denotes differentiation with respect to R The boundary conditions
on \y(R) reduce to

G(R = 0) = 0 (3.10a)
WK,(W)
G{R = 1) = - (3.10b)
K0 on
where K„ (x) is the modified Bessel function of nth order [12]. Hence for a given F(R)
and for V obtained from Eq.(3.6), the problem of computing W reduces to solving the
transcendental equation (3.10b). G (R=l) for a particular W is obtained by solving the
differential equation (3.9) starting from the initial condition G(0) = 0. For the solution of
the differential equation (3.9), we have used fourth order Runge-Kutta method. Once W is
obtained, ne (X) is computed using the expression

2 "N 1/2
W
».w= nl + 2.2
a oy
(3.11)

In a similar manner, we obtain «e(X+AX) and ne(k-AX) and compute d2ne / dX2 using
equation (3.3).
/

We have also computed dispersion using the following single parameter

variational approximation for the LPoi mode recently proposed by one of us [6]

38
 *(*) = exp(-pfl2), R< 1

= -j=exp[p -1/2 — (2p -1/2)R], R> 1 (3.12)

where p is the sole variational parameter. To compute dispersion we still use the three

point formula of Eq.(3.3). In order to calculate ne(X) of this formula, we evaluate V(X)
using Eqs.(3.5) and (3.6). Then we obtain U(X) at this V(X) by minimizing the usual
variational expression for U2(X) [6] corresponding to the refractive index profile (with or

without imperfection) of interest From this we calculate ne(A.) utilizing Eq.(3.11) with

W(X) = [V2(X) - U2(X)]m (3.13)

The variational expression for U2 is presented in Appendix B.

3.3 Interesting results on dispersion

3.3a In this subsection we present some numerical results to demonstrate the

effectiveness of our method. We have computed Dt as a function of core radius a for
various values of fiber parameters utilizing our method as well as the SSG method. The
results of these calculations are presented in Table 3.1. We do not intend to present an
exhaustive set of curves and results, but we would like to show how our method works.
Thus, we have compared the results obtained by both the methods for a parabolic index
fiber only. The excellent agreement between the results obtained by both the methods, as
evident from Table 3.1, establishes the correctness of our method.

3.3b Next, using the present method we have calculated total dispersion Dt as a
function of core radius a for various values of 6 corresponding to q = 0.5, 0.75,1.0 and
2.0. The results are plotted in the form of curves in Figures 3.1-3.4, respectively. In our
entire calculation, the operating wavelength X has been typically chosen as 1.5 pm as it is

39
Table 3.1: Values of Dt as a function of a for a Parabolic
index fiber using present and SSG methods

Fiber a (pm) Dt(ps/kn-iim)

parameters present SSG

q=2 4.8 -1.784 -1.784

5 = 0.004 5.0 -1.382 -1.382
X = 1.33nm 5.2 -0.847 -0.847
5.4 -0.399 -0.399
5.6 -0.028 -0.028
5.8 -0.431 -0.431

q=2 2.8 -3.009 -3.009

5 = 0.015 2.9 -1.686 -1.686
X = 1.53^m 3.0 -0.367 -0.367
3.1 -0.926 -0.926
3.2 2.177 2.177
3.3 3.376 3.376
10.0

Fig: 3.1 Total dispersion as a function of core radius for q = 0.5 fiber operating at
X = 1.5pm
Fig: 3.2 Total dispersion as a function of core radius for q = 0.75 fiber operating at
X= 1.5pm
Fig: 3.3 Total dispersion as a function of core radius for a triangular index(q = 1.0)
fiber operating at X= 1.5pm
Fig: 3.4 Total dispersion as a function of core radius for a parabolic index (q = 2.0)
fiber operating at % = 1.5 pm
close to the lowest loss window. Similar calculations have been carried out using the SSG
method. As these results are identical with our results, the former have not been
separately presented. This is a further confirmation of the correctness of our method.
From the figures we observe that Dt becomes zero at two values of a denoted by ai and as
(where as < ai) which seem to be sensitive functions of the grading parameter 8. In fact,
for values of a < as , Dt decreases with the increase of a and for values of a > ai, it
increases with the increase of a. The existence of two core radii as and ai at which Dt
becomes zero was reported long ago by Tsuchiya and Imoto [86], However, not much
importance was given to this result by subsequent researchers. To our knowledge, a
detailed study on the dependence of these two core radii on various parameters of the
fiber has not yet been reported. Thus, in this subsection of the thesis, we summarize the
results in Table 3.2 which illustrates the variation of ai and as with 8 and q using the
present method. The table also includes the results obtained by variational method for the
purpose of comparison. We have also investigated the effect of axial dip in index profile
on these two zero dispersion core radii in the next section. For the sake of convenience in
explanation, we introduce a new parameter Aa = ai - as. Figures 3.1 -3.4 illustrate that for
a given set of values of q and X, there is an increase in ai and a decrease in as resulting in
an increase of Aa with the increase of 8 provided that the value of q lies below a certain
maximum value. For example, in the present case in which X = 1.5pm, this maximum
value of q is around 1.2. If q exceeds 1.2, both ai and as decrease with the increase of 8.
To illustrate this behaviour of ai with 8, we have plotted the relevant curves in Figure 3.4
for the typical case of q = 2. The figures also illustrate that a* is more sensitive to
variation of 8 than ai. Further, it is important to note that, for a given set of values of X
and q, Dt becomes zero provided that 8 is greater than certain minimum value. For
example, we have observed that in the typical case of X = 1.5pm and q = 0.5, this
minimum 8 is around 0.0178. From calculations, we have also found that for a given
value of A,, this minimum value of 8 decreases with the increase of q.

In Figure 3.5 we have plotted Dtas a function of a for X = 1.5pm and 8 = 0.024
corresponding to different values of q. From the figure we observe that smaller is the

40
Table 3,2: as and ai as a function of 8 for a power law profile fiber
operating at A,=1.5pm

q 8 Present method Variational method

as (pm) ai (pm) as (pm) ai (pm)

0.020 1.735 3.710 1.767 3.848

0.5 0.022 2.362 3.782 2.492 4.020
0.024 2.181 3.852 2.281 4.082

0.016 2.466 3.520 2.600 3.696

0.018 2.195 3.623 2.286 3.803
0.75
0.020 2.004 3.671 2.068 3.841
0.024 1.735 3.710 1.767 3.848

0.016 2.081 3.490 2.147 3.633

0.018 1.885 3.520 1.928 3.653
1.0 0.020 1.735 3.530 1.762 3.647
0.022 1.615 3.525 1.630 3.630
0.024 1.516 3.515 1.521 3.605

0.012 1.979 3.144' 2.013 3.212

0.016 1.568 3.139 1.565 3.192
2.0 0.018 1.438 3.108 1.426 3.151
0.020 1.334 3.070 1.315 ■ 3.106
0.024 1.176 2.991 1.150 3.013
Fig: 3.5 Total dispersion as a function of core radius for q = 0.5, 0.75,1.0 and 2.0
fibers with 8 = 0.024 and operating at X = 1.5pm
value of q larger are aiand as. This type of dependence of ai and as is found to be true for
all values of 5 although in Figure 3.5 we have plotted the curves for 8 = 0.024 just for the
purpose of illustration.

3.4. Effect of imperfection in refractive index profile on Dispersion

Of the two imperfections in the index profile mentioned in section 1.1, we have
considered only the on-axis dip and have studied how it affects the dispersion. In a recent
publication of ours [17] we have shown that the effect of sinusoidal ripple on the
propagation constant of the LPoi mode is practically negligible. The details of this have
been discussed in chapter 2. Also the effect of this imperfection on the zero dispersion
parameters of a single-mode fiber [10] is negligibly small. Thus, in the present work, we
have not considered the effect of sinusoidal ripples in the refractive index profile on the
dispersion characteristics presented in section 3.3.

Using the proposed numerical method we have calculated Dt as a function ofa for
a parabolic index fiber for different values of 8, d and wo. The results for d = w0= 0.5 are
plotted in the form of curves in Figure 3.6 corresponding to 8 = 0.016 and 0.020. To
know the effect of dip, in the same figure we have also traced the curves (solid) which
represent Dtas a function of a in the absence of dip. From the figure we observe that the
presence of dip increases as and decreases ai. The figure as well as the results obtained for
other values of 8 indicates that the shift (increase) of as increases as the value of 8
decreases. Similarly, it is observed that the shift (decrease) of ai increases with the
decrease of 8. We would like to mention that the shift of a8 due to variation of 8 is faster
than that of ai. The values of ai and a, for different values of w0, d, and 8 for the
parabolic index fiber are summarized in Table 3.3. The table illustrates that for a given
value of 8, the value of a8 increases, whereas, the value of ai decreases with the increase
of wo or d.

41
Fig: 3.6 Total dispersion as a function of core radius for a parabolic index (q = 2.0)

fiber with d = wo = 0.5 and operating at X = 1.5jj.m

Table3.3 : a! and as as a function of 5, w0 and d for a parabolic
index (q = 2) fiber operating at X = 1.55pm.

5 Wo d Present method Variational method

ai(pm) as(pm) ai (pm) as(pm)

0.016 0.0 0.0 1.568 3.139 1.565 3.192

0.1 0.1 1.571 3.130 1.569 3.182

0.3 1.578 3.113 1.575 3.162

0.5 1.585 3.097 1.582 3.142

0.3 0.1 1.596 3.095 1.594 3.142

0.3 1.657 3.013 1.656 3.046

0.5 1.726 2.938 1.728 2.952

0.5 0.1 1.632 3.088 1.632 3.146

0.3 1.791 2.996 1.799 3.032

0.5 2.027 2.837 2.052 2.850

0.020 0.0 0.0 1.334 3.070 1.315 3.106

0.5 0.5 1.658 2.876 1.652 2.885

0.024 0.0 0.0 1.176 2.991 1.150 3.013

0.5 0.5 1.439 2.837 1.419 2.836

Table 3.4: as and ai as a function of 8, w0 and d for a parabolic index fiber
Operating at X = 1.5 pm. Dt(S) and Dt(i) represent dispersion
Corresponding to as and ai under GE approximation

Dt(s) Dt(i)
8 Wo d as (jj.ni) a, (pm)
(ps/km-nm) (ps/km-nm)

0.1 2.018 0.0020 3.199 0.0000

0.1 0.3 2.030 0.0000 3.179 0.0000
0.5 2.042 0.0000 3.157 0.0000

0.1 2.062 0.0000 3.146 0.0000

0.012 0.3 2.183 0.0110 3.002 0.0000
0.3
0.5 2.370 0.0000 2.800 0.0000

0.1 2.127 0.0000 3.127 0.0000

0.5 0.3 2.569 0.0110 2.754 0.0000
0.5 - - “ -

0,1 1.318 0.0012 3.095 -0.0001

0.1 0.3 1.323 0.0097 3.074 -0.0018
0.5 1.328 -0.0011 3.054 -0.0006

0.1 1.337 0.0028 3.058 -0.0043

0.020 0.3 0.3 1.383 0.0013 2.970 -0.0096
0.5 1.434 -0.0012 2.891 -0.0027

0.1 1.366 0.0001 3.070 -0.0027

0.5 0.3 1.489 -0.0084 2.990 0.0094
0.5 1.652 0.0024 2.885 0.0002

0,1 1.152 -0.0023 3.001 -0.0075

0.1 0.3 1.156 -0.0004 2.979 -0.0024
0.5 1.160 -0.0028 2.958 -0.0033

0.1 1.167 -0.0027 2.965 0.0083

0.024 0.3 0.3 1.205 -0.0021 2.880 0.0047
0.5 1.246 0.0096 2.806 -0.0015

0.1 1.192 -0.0007 2.982 0.0079

0.5 0.3 1.291 -0.0026 2.915 0.0082
0.5 1.419 -0.0005 2.836 0.0045
 Finally, using the recently proposed single parameter variational approximation
[6] for the LPoi mode presented in Eq.(3.12) of section 3.2, we have studied all the
dispersion characteristics discussed so far. For the purpose of illustration, we have
computed as and ai for different values of 5, wo and d for q = 2 fiber using the variational
field and have presented the results also in Tables 3.2 and 3.4. The excellent agreement
between the results based on the variational method and those based on the present
numerical method is evident from the Table 3.3. In Table 3.4, we have also presented the
value of dispersion corresponding to each core radius. For the sake of convenience in
presentation, we have used Dt (s) and Dt (1) for dispersion corresponding to shorter and
longer zero dispersion core radii respectively. From the table it is observed that for 8 =
0.012 and wo = d = 0.5, the zero dispersion core radius does not exist at all.

3.5 Conclusion

We have computed dispersion for single-mode parabolic index fibers utilizing the
proposed numerical method. The accuracy of the results obtained has been confirmed by
comparing the results with those obtained by SSG method. Further, we have shown that
there are two values of core radius for which dispersion becomes zero for various values
of fiber parameters q, 5 and X. We have then investigated the effect of on-axis dip on
these two zero dispersion core radii using the proposed numerical method and also by
using a recently proposed single parameter variational approximation for the LPoi mode.
The results obtained by the variational approach are in excellent agreement with those
obtained by the proposed numerical method.

42