Optical Fibre

Term Paper-1 (PHYSICS) submitted for the degree of

Bachelor of Technology
2018-2022
In Information Technology

Submitted By
Tejoshmoy Dutta
Roll No: 43/IT-2

Department of Information Technology

Siliguri Institute of Technology

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Contents Page no.

Abstract 4
1. Introduction 5
1.1 History of Fibre Optics 5
1.2 What is Fibre Optics? 6
1.3 Invention of Fibre Optics 6
 Timeline 7-8

2. Working Principle behind Fibre Optics and Optical Fibres 8

2.1 Basic Principles of Fibre
Optic Communication 8-9
2.2 Fibre Basics 9-10
 Structure
 Light in fibre
2.3 Transmission Characteristics of Fibre 10
 Attenuation
 Dispersion
2.4 Jargon Buster 10-11
 EDFA
 TDM
 DWDM
3. Role of Fiber optic technology in Information Revolution 12
3.1 The Laser 12
3.2 Optical Communications 12-13
3.3 Total Internal Reflection 13-14
3.4 Extremely Transparent Glass 14-16
3.5 Absorption in Optical Fibres 16-17
3.6 Why are Optical Fibres so good for communications? 17
3.7 Digital encoding of Information 17-19
3.8 Repeaters and Dispersion 19-20

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 3.9 Erbium doped Fibre Amplifiers (EDFAs) 20-21
3.10 Optical Communication Networks 21
3.11 Trans-ocean Optical Fibre Cables 22-23
3.12 Optical Fibre Network Architectures 23-24
3.13 Line-of-sight Optical Links 24
4. Advantages and Disadvantages of Fibre Optics
4.1 Advantages of Optical Fiber Cable 25
 Bandwidth
 Low Power Loss
 Interference
 Size
 Weight
 Security
 Flexibility
 Cost
4.2 Disadvantages of Optical Fiber Cable 26
 Difficulty to Splice
 Expensive to Install
 Highly Susceptible
 Can’t be Curved
5. Conclusion 26

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 Abstract
Fibre optic systems are important telecommunication infrastructure for world-wide broadband
networks. Wide bandwidth signal transmission with low delay is a key requirement in present day
applications. Optical fibres provide enormous and unsurpassed transmission bandwidth with negligible
latency, and are now the transmission medium of choice for long distance and high data rate
transmission in telecommunication networks. This paper gives and overview of fibre optic communication
systems including their key technologies, and also discusses their technological trend towards the next
generation.
A fibre-optic cable-laying routing with a minimum cost is one of the most important issues of
Access Network Planning. In this paper, the problem of routing between a local exchange (LE) and its
remote units for an access network (AN) ring structure is considered. We formulate this problem as
combinatorial-optimization one and use dynamic programming principle for its solution. Software
calculation results demonstrate the capability of our approach to determine the minimum-cost route.

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 1.
Introduction
The field of fibre optics communications has exploded over the past two decades. Fibre is an integral part of modern
day communication infrastructure and can be found along roads, in buildings, hospitals and machinery.

The major driving force behind the widespread use of fibre optics communication is the high and rapidly increasing
consumer and commercial demand for more telecommunication capacity and internet services, with fibre optic
technology capable of providing the required information capacity (larger than both wireless connections and copper
cable). Advances in technology have enabled more data to be conveyed through a single optical fibre over long
distances. The transmission capacity in optical communication networks are significantly improved using wavelength
division multiplexing.

A desirable feature for future optical networks is the ability to process information entirely in the optical domain for
the purpose of amplification, multiplexing, de-efficient than electrical signal processing.

1.1 History of fibre optics:

Starting in the 1840’s, physicists Daniel Collodon and Jacques Babinet demonstrated that light could be directed along
water jets for nighttime fountain displays. Later, in 1854, British physicist John Tyndall proved that light could travel
through a curved stream of water. Using a tank of water with a pipe that ran out of one side, Babinet then shone a
light into the tank, into the stream of water. An arc of light followed the water as it fell.

An optical telephone system was patented in 1880 by Alexander Graham Bell. Bell’s “photophone” never panned out
and his earlier invention the telephone proved much more successful. Later that same year, William Walter tried his
hand at inventing a series of light pipes lined with a highly reflective coating that illuminated homes by utilizing light
from an electric arc lamp located in the basement of the home. The light was then directed through the house with a
series of pipes.

Bent glass rods were used by physicians Roth and Reuss in Vienna to illuminate body cavities in 1888. This was followed
by French Engineer Henri Saint-Rene who utilized a series of bent glass rods for guiding light images, an early attempt
at television. In 1898, American David Smith patented a dental illuminator that relied on a curved glass rod.

In the 1920’s John Logie Baird obtained a patent for using arrays of transparent rods to transmit images for television,
while Clarence W. Hansell used the same configuration to create facsimiles. During 1930, Heinrich Lamm successfully
transmitted and images through a bundle of fibres. The image was of a light bulb filament. Lamm intended to use this
system to look inside the human body, however with the shift in power during World War II, he was forced to abandon
his work and seek asylum in America. He made an effort to file a patent but was denied because of Hansell’s British
Patent.

Danish physicist Holger Moeller, applied for a patent in 1951 for fibre-optic imaging. He proposed coating glass or
plastic fibres with a low index material. His patent was denied because of Baird and Hansel’s patents. Three years later
Abraham Van Heel and Harold H. Hopkins debuted imaging bundles at two different times in the British journal Nature.
Later, Van Heel produced a cladded fibre system; it showed a great reduction in signal interference and issues between
fibres, like crosstalk. At Columbia University, in 1954, Charles Townes and his colleagues developed ‘maser’. Maser
stands for “microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”.

Not until 1958 was the laser introduced as an efficient source of light. Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow intended
to show that masers could operate in optical and infrared regions. Light is reflected back and forth to generate

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amplified light, as opposed to excited gas molecules being amplified to generate radio waves, as in the maser. The first
continuously operating helium-neon gas laser was invented and tested in 1960. That same year, using a synthetic pink
ruby crystal, an operable laser was invented.

Elias Snitzer of American Optical published a 1961 theoretical description of single mode fibres, with a core so small
that it could carry light with a single waveguide mode. He was able to demonstrate a laser directed through a thin
glass fibre that had implications in medicine, but suffered too great a light loss to have any communication
applications.

In 1964, Charles Kao and George Hockham from Standard Communications Laboratory in England published a paper
that demonstrated, in theory, how removing impurities from glass fibres could dramatically improve light loss.

It was not until 1970 that scientists at Corning Glass Works created a single mode fibre that had less than a 20dB/km
attenuation. This result was achieved by doping silica glass with titanium. Bell Laboratories, along with Morton Panish,
Izuo Hayashi and a group from the Physical Institute in Leningrad showcased a semiconductor diode laser that could
emit continuous waves at room temperature in 1973.

In the late 1970’s and 1980’s, telephone companies began to use fibre extensively in their communications networks.
In the mid-1980’s Sprint founded the first nationwide, 100 percent digital fibre network. A reduction in the cost of long
distance systems came in 1986 with the erbium-doped fibre amplifier developed by David Payne of the University of
Southampton and Emmanuel Desurvire at Bell Laboratories. The first transatlantic telephone cable went into
operation in 1988 utilizing Desurvire’s laser amplification technology.

Debuting in 1991, Desurvire and Payne demonstrated optical amplifiers that were built into the fibre-optic cable itself.
This all optic system could support more than 100 times more information than a cable with electronic amplifiers. Also
in 1991, photonic crystal fibre emerged. Guiding light by means of diffraction, this fibre allows power to be carried
more efficiently than by conventional fibres.

The TPC - 5, an all-optic fibre cable that uses optical amplifiers was laid across the Pacific Ocean in 1996. The next year
Fibre Optic Link around the Globe or FLAG became the longest single cable network on record and is the base for the
next generations of Internet applications.

Today’s technology finds fibre optics in many industries, in a variety of applications. Military, medical,
telecommunication, data storage, networking, industrial, and broadcast industries have all found ways to utilize this
versatile fibre.

1.2 What is Fibre Optics?

Fibre optics is the contained transmission of light through long fibre rods of either glass or plastics. The light travels by
process of internal reflection. The core medium of the rod or cable is more reflective than the material surrounding
the core. That causes the light to keep being reflected back into the core where it can continue to travel down the
fibre. Fibre optic cables are used for transmitting voice, images, and other data at close to the speed of light.

1.3. Invention of Fibre Optics:

Corning Glass researchers Robert Maurer, Donald Keck, and Peter Schultz invented fibre optic wire or "Optical
Waveguide Fibres" (patent #3,711,262) capable of carrying 65,000 times more information than copper wire, through
which information carried by a pattern of light waves could be decoded at a destination even a thousand miles away.

Fibre optic communication methods and materials invented by them opened the door to the commercialization of
fibre optics. From long-distance telephone service to the Internet and medical devices such as the endoscope, fibre
optics are now a major part of modern life.

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Timeline:

1854 - John Tyndall demonstrated to the Royal Society that light could be conducted through a curved stream of water,
proving that a light signal could be bent.

1880 - Alexander Graham Bell invented his "Photophone," which transmitted a voice signal on a beam of light. Bell
focused sunlight with a mirror and then talked into a mechanism that vibrated the mirror. At the receiving end, a
detector picked up the vibrating beam and decoded it back into a voice the same way a phone did with electrical
signals. However, many things—a cloudy day, for instance—could interfere with the Photophone, causing Bell to stop
any further research with this invention.

1880 - William Wheeler invented a system of light pipes lined with a highly reflective coating that illuminated homes
by using light from an electric arc lamp placed in the basement and directing the light around the home with the pipes.

1888 - The medical team of Roth and Reuss of Vienna used bent glass rods to illuminate body cavities.

1895 - French engineer Henry Saint-Rene designed a system of bent glass rods for guiding light images in an attempt
at early television.

1898 - American David Smith applied for a patent on a bent glass rod device to be used as a surgical lamp.

1920s - Englishman John Logie Baird and American Clarence W. Hansell patented the idea of using arrays of transparent
rods to transmit images for television and facsimiles respectively.

1930 - German medical student Heinrich Lamm was the first person to assemble a bundle of optical fibres to carry an
image. Lamm's goal was to look inside inaccessible parts of the body. During his experiments, he reported transmitting
the image of a light bulb. The image was of poor quality, however. His effort to file a patent was denied because of
Hansell's British patent.

1954 - Dutch scientist Abraham Van Heel and British scientist Harold. H. Hopkins separately wrote papers on imaging
bundles. Hopkins reported on imaging bundles of unclad fibres while Van Heel reported on simple bundles of clad
fibres. He covered a bare fibre with a transparent cladding of a lower refractive index. This protected the fibre
reflection surface from outside distortion and greatly reduced interference between fibres. At the time, the greatest
obstacle to a viable use of fibre optics was in achieving the lowest signal (light) loss.

1961 - Elias Snitzer of American Optical published a theoretical description of single-mode fibres, a fibre with a core
so small it could carry light with only one waveguide mode. Snitzer's idea was okay for a medical instrument looking
inside the human, but the fibre had a light loss of one decibel per meter. Communications devices needed to operate
over much longer distances and required a light loss of no more than 10 or 20 decibels (measurement of light) per
kilometer.

1964 - A critical (and theoretical) specification was identified by Dr. C.K. Kao for long-range communication devices.
The specification was 10 or 20 decibels of light loss per kilometer, which established the standard. Kao also illustrated
the need for a purer form of glass to help reduce light loss.

1970 - One team of researchers began experimenting with fused silica, a material capable of extreme purity with a
high melting point and a low refractive index. Corning Glass researchers Robert Maurer, Donald Keck and Peter Schultz
invented fibre optic wire or "Optical Waveguide Fibres" (patent #3,711,262) capable of carrying 65,000 times more
information than copper wire. This wire allowed for information carried by a pattern of light waves to be decoded at
a destination even a thousand miles away. The team had solved the problems presented by Dr. Kao.

1975 - The United States government decided to link the computers at the NORAD headquarters at Cheyenne
Mountain using fibre optics to reduce interference.

1977 - The first optical telephone communication system was installed about 1.5 miles under downtown Chicago. Each
optical fibre carried the equivalent of 672 voice channels.

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By the end of the century, more than 80 percent of the world's long-distance traffic was carried over optical fibre
cables and 25 million kilometers of the cable. Maurer, Keck, and Schultz-designed cables have been installed
worldwide.

2.
Working Principle behind Fibre Optics and
Optical Fibres
An optical fibre is a cylindrical dielectric waveguide (non-conducting waveguide) that transmits light along its axis, by
the process of total internal reflection. The fibre consists of a core surrounded by a cladding layer, both of which are
made of dielectric materials. To confine the optical signal in the core, the refractive index of the core must be greater
than that of the cladding. The boundary between the core and cladding may either be abrupt, in step-index fibre, or
gradual, in graded-index fibre.

1.1 Basic Principles of Fibre Optic Communication:

Fibre optic communication is a communication technology that uses light pulses to transfer information from one
point to another through an optical fibre. The information transmitted is essentially digital information generated by
telephone systems, cable television companies, and computer systems. An optical fibre is a dielectric cylindrical
waveguide made from low-loss materials, usually silicon dioxide. The core of the waveguide has a refractive index a
little higher than that of the outer medium (cladding), so that light pulses is guided along the axis of the fibre by total
internal reflection. Fibre optic communication systems consists of an optical transmitter to convert an electrical signal
to an optical signal for transmission through the optical fibre, a cable containing several bundles of optical fibres,
optical amplifiers to boost the power of the optical signal, and an optical receiver to reconvert the received optical
signal back to the original transmitted electrical signal. The figure below gives a simplified description of a basic fibre
optic communication system.

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Optical fibres fall into two major categories, namely: step index optical fibre, which include single mode optical fibre
and multimode optical fibre, and graded index optical fibre. Single mode step index optical fibre has a core diameter
less than 10 micrometers and only allows one light path. Multimode step index optical fibre has a core diameter
greater than or equal to 50 micrometers and allows several light paths, this leads to modal dispersion. Graded index
optical fibres have their core refractive index gradually decrease further from the centre of the core, this increased
refraction at the core centre slows the speed of some light rays, thereby allowing all the light rays to reach the receiver
at almost the same time, thereby reducing dispersion. The figure below gives a description of the various optical fibre
modes.

2.2 Fibre Basics:

Fibre Structure:
The diagram shows the typical structure of a fibre used for communication links. It has an inner glass core with an
outer cladding. This is covered with a protective buffer and outer jacket. This design of fibre is light and has a very low
loss, making it ideal for the transmission of information over long distances.

Light in a fibre:
The light propagates along the fibre by the process of total internal reflection. The light is contained within the glass
core and cladding by careful design of their refractive indices. The loss along the fibre is low and the signal is not
subject to electromagnetic interference which plagues other methods of signal transmission, such as radio or copper
wire links.

The signal is, however, degraded by other means particular to the fibre such as dispersion (described below) and
nonlinear effects (caused by a high power density in the fibre core)

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2.3 Transmission Characteristics of Fibre:

Attenuation:
The loss, or attenuation in fibre depends on the wavelength of the light propagating within it. The image shows the
attenuation spectrum of a typical single mode fibre used within the telecommunications industry. There are three
main bandwidth 'windows' of interest in the attenuation spectrum of fibre. The 1st window is at 800-900nm, here
there is a good source of cheap silicon based sources & detectors. The 2nd window is at 1260-1360nm, here there is
low fibre attenuation coupled with zero material dispersion (see dispersion). The 3rd window of interest is at 1430-
1580nm where fibre has its attenuation minimum. Typically the telecommunications industry use wavelengths in the
3rd window which coincides with the gain bandwidth of Fibre Amplifiers (see EDFAs). In the future the search for
greater bandwidth is likely to open up other windows for fibre transmission.

Dispersion:
Light from a typical optical source will contain a finite spectrum. The different wavelength components in this
spectrum will propagate at different speeds along the fibre eventually causing the pulse to spread. When the pulses
spread to the degree where they 'collide' it causes detection problems at the receiver resulting in errors in
transmission. This is called Intersymbol Interference (ISI). Dispersion (sometimes called chromatic dispersion) is a
limiting factor in fibre bandwidth, since the shorter the pulses the more susceptible they are to ISI.

2.4 Jargon Buster:

EDFA - Erbium Doped Fibre Amplifier

Otherwise known as a fibre or optical amplifier, the EDFA is an important component in long distance fibre links. Fibre
and component attenuation in modern telecommunications links degrade the transmitted signal. When the signal
power becomes too low errors will occur at the optical receiver as it struggles to recognise the transmitted signal from
received noise.

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Before the introduction of EFDAs, in order to transmit signals over long distances the signal would be detected and re-
transmitted at regular intervals, this process was called regeneration. EDFAs provide the telecommunications engineer
with the means to optically amplify the signal en-route without converting the signal from the optical back to the
electrical domain. The component works by the principle of stimulated emission. A piece of fibre doped with Erbium
irons is pumped by a laser at high powers. The excited erbium irons release their energy when the data signal is passed
through the fibre. The process is such, that the energy they release matches the signal exactly, thus amplifying the
signal.

TDM - Time Division Multiplexing

The diagram below illustrates that is a method of incorporating many signals into one. Many slower speed signals are
sampled onto one high speed signal.

DWDM - Dense Wavelength Division Multiplex

Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing is a method of expanding the bandwidth of fibre. Many high speed signals
are multiplexed together using different wavelength (or colours) for transmission over one fibre. The diagram below
illustrates the concept.

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 3.
Role of Fibre optic technology in Information
Revolution
Everywhere on this planet hair-thin optical fibres carry vast quantities of information from place to place. There are
many desirable properties of optical fibres for carrying this information. They have enormous information-carrying
capacity, are low cost, and possess immunity from the many disturbances that can afflict electrical wires and wireless
communication links. The superiority of optical fibres for carrying information from place to place is leading to their
rapidly replacing older technologies. Optical fibres have played a key role in making possible the extraordinary growth
in world-wide communications that has occurred in the last 25 years, and are vital in enabling the proliferating use of
the Internet.
Of key importance in the course of these developments in information technology have been a few basic, but vitally
significant, events. Principal among these are the invention and development of the laser, the growing appreciation
that this might make optical communications practically useful, the production of very pure glass, which was
sufficiently transparent that long distance transmission of light through glass fibres became practical, and the digital
revolution. We will examine the role that each of these has played in creating the "Information Age."

3.1 The Laser

Although the physical principles underlying the laser were first explained by Albert Einstein early in this century, it was
not until the spring of 1960 that Theodore Maiman, working at the Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California,
produced the first operating laser. This laser, which used a special ruby crystal, produced intense flashes of red light,
a light with properties quite different from that emitted by conventional sources. A laser emits light in a very narrow
beam– much like a searchlight. Laser light is very spectrally pure -- it is of a very pure, well-defined color -- and is very
bright. These properties make a laser ideal for shining light from place to place over long distances, and it was soon
proposed that this provided new opportunities to expand the usefulness of optical communication links.
Over the last almost forty years, developments in the laser field have occurred at a rapid pace. Many new lasers have
been discovered, each with its own special properties and applications, and their cost, performance, and practicality
have all shown dramatic improvement. Although the laser was first described as "a solution looking for a problem,"
this is no longer the case. These devices affect our lives in many ways, every day. At the supermarket checkout a laser
illuminates the bar code on each purchase, allowing its rapid identification and pricing. Every compact disk player
contains a low-cost, semiconductor laser, whose beam illuminates the pattern of information encoded into the surface
of the CD and allows its rapid re-translation into music or computer data. At the doctor’s office, or in hospitals, lasers
are used for many minor and major surgical procedures: removal of skin cancer, birth marks, and other lesions, for the
fragmentation of kidney stones, the welding back into place of detached retinas, for cosmetic surgery, photodynamic
therapy, and as a specialized scalpel.
The most widely used type of laser is the semiconductor laser, which has much in its technology in common with the
semiconductor devices that we use in modern electronic devices. The principal difference between these two
semiconductor technologies is that conventional electronic semiconductors are almost exclusively based on the
element silicon, whereas semiconductors used in lasers (and related so-called optoelectronic devices) are based
primarily on mixed semiconductors made up from gallium (Ga) and arsenic (As), and often aluminum (Al) as well. It is
semiconductor lasers made up from GaAs/GaAlAs that provide the light for optical communication along optical fibres.

3.2 Optical Communications

Optical communications systems have a long history. Ancient man signaled with smoke and fire, often relaying
messages from mountain top to mountain top. However, this optical communication scheme had limited transmission

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capacity. They could serve as a warning, as Queen Elizabeth the First of England planned when she had a network of
bonfires erected to be set in the event of a seaborne invasion from Spain. The smoke signals transmitted by native
Americans had the capacity to transmit various messages. Since the end of the eighteenth century messages have
been passed by semaphore – the use of flags to indicate the transmission of one letter at a time. This form of
communication could transmit information at a rate of about one letter per second over a direct line of sight, although
messages could be relayed over long distances. Such means of communication were not very secure: anyone in the
line of sight to the message sender could read the information (if he knew the code). The message could also be
intercepted and altered during the relay process as the Count of Monte Cristo did to his advantage.
Another historical use of optical communication involved the heliograph -- a device to reflect the sun's rays from a
transmitting to receiving station using a code. This technique was widely used by the US Cavalry in the desert south-
west of the United States until the early part of the twentieth century. For optical communication to progress past
these early efforts, an information carrying channel had to be developed that was reliable, inexpensive, and that could
be used over long distances, preferably at high rates of data transmission. The fundamental physical phenomenon
that makes this possible is called total internal reflection. This phenomenon causes light to reflect, rather than refract,
when it attempts to cross the boundary from one transparent optical medium to another of lower optical density, at
a sufficiently large angle. As early as 1854, in London, John Tyndall demonstrated that light could be guided inside a
transparent medium with such a density discontinuity with its surroundings. He did this by showing light being guided
along a stream of water flowing from a container. His simple demonstration proves that in the right circumstances
light need not travel in straight lines.

3.3 Total Internal Reflection

When a ray of light passes from one transparent medium to another, for example at the surface of a pool of water, it
generally bends at the boundary. This phenomenon is well known: a stick poked into water appears to bend. The
bending of the ray at the boundary is described by Snell’s law, a simple relationship between the sines of the angles
that the ray makes on the two sides of the boundary. Mathematically, Snell’s law can be written as:
n1sinq 1=n2sinq 2
Where q 1 is the angle of the ray on one side of the boundary, as shown in figure below, and q 2 is the angle on the
other side. The quantities n1 and n2 are the refractive indices of the media on opposite sides of the boundary.

The refractive index of each medium is a number that characterizes the optical density of the medium relative to a
vacuum. It is a number that describes how much more slowly light travels in the medium relative to its velocity in a
vacuum. If n2 is less than n1 this equation restricts the angles at which a ray of light can get across the boundary. If

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light is passing from medium 1 to medium 2 and the angle q 1 is greater than the critical angle, then the light cannot
refract across the boundary (because q 1 cannot be greater than 90o). The critical angle is the angle whose sine is
n2/n1. When a ray of light strikes a boundary at an angle greater than the critical angle it reflects, and does not cross.
Although many devices that we use in real life use this phenomenon, and although many natural optical phenomena
depend on its occurrence, we may not be aware of it. A simple example can be given, which involves what a swimmer
sees who is underwater and attempting to look upwards through the surface. If such a swimmer looks more or less
straight up towards the surface, he or she will be able to see what is above the surface. On the other hand if he or she
looks at a sufficiently large angle towards the surface, only a reflection of whatever is below the surface will be seen.
Of course, a fish would experience the same effect and can only see over a range of angles near the perpendicular to
the surface. This phenomenon is of real practical significance to fisherman, because a fish seeing an attractive lure
cannot see the rod to which it is attached, nor the fisherman.

Optical fibres use total internal reflection to keep a light ray trapped within the denser glass of the center of a
composite cylindrical glass fibre, the core. It is as if light rays are guided down the core of the fibre in a zigzag path by
a succession of total internal reflections at the boundary between the core glass and the less dense glass surrounding
it – the cladding, as shown in figure above.
Before discussing the advantages of optical communication along such fibres, we must go back in time to discuss the
properties of glass, and how these properties had to be modified to make optical fibres sufficiently transparent to
make long distance light transmission along them possible.

3.4 Extremely Transparent Glass

Conventional window glass, whether it be soda-lime glass or borosilicate (Pyrex), is not really very transparent. It only
appears so because we usually use it in thin sheets – typically a few millimeters thick. If you examine a piece of such
sheet glass by viewing it from the narrow edge it is easily seen that the glass has a deep green or brown color when
viewed in thicknesses of several centimeters. Even so, glass not much more transparent than this was used, as early
as 1957, to make fibre imaging bundles. In these structures, which were primarily developed for medical imaging, a
large number of optical fibres are bonded together to make an aligned bundle. An optical image projected onto one
end of the bundle is relayed along the bundle, and appears at the far end, where it can be viewed. For viewing distances
of a few tens of centimeters, the amount of transmitted light reaching the far end of conventional glass was sufficiently
large to allow these imaging bundles to be used for looking into confined spaces, for example inside the body if the
fibre was inserted through a body orifice into the esophagus, stomach, or intestine. When these imaging bundles were
first used, about 80% of the original light reached the far end of a bundle 1m long. Unfortunately, for a fibre 100 m

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long, only a ten billionth part of the light reaches the far end – essentially zero. The reduction in transmitted light
intensity decreases exponentially with fibre length. We often describe the attenuation properties of the fibre with a
measure called the decibel (dB). The attenuation of a length of fibre in dB is determined from the ratio of the input
light power (P1) to the output light power at the far end of the fibre (P2) as
Attenuation (dB) = 10 log (P1/P2)
In the example above the attenuation of the fibre is 1000 dB per km (1000 dB/km). Clearly, a fibre with so much
attenuation is useless for long distance light transmission. In the early 60s it was quickly realized that unless more
transparent glass could be developed, it was merely a dream to contemplate the use of glass fibres to carry information
optically over long distances.
Fortunately, a major breakthrough was achieved by Charles Kao and George Hockham at Standard
Telecommunications Laboratories Ltd. (STL) (now part of Nortel), who in 1966 pointed out that the attenuation of
glass was largely caused by the presence of impurity metal ions, such as iron, copper, vanadium, and chromium, and
that if a glass could be developed with attenuation of only 20 dB/km, then optical communication could become a
reality. With such a fibre, 1% of the input light reaches the far end of a 1 km length of fibre. Fig.(3) shows Charles Kao
at work in his laboratory at Harlow, England in 1966.

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Kao and Hockham’s work spurred the efforts of others and in 1970 scientists Donald Keck, Robert Maurer, and Peter
Schultz at Corning Glass achieved the attenuation figure of 20 dB/km. By 1975 this figure was down to 4 dB/km.
Attenuation in state-of-the-art fibres has declined steadily since then, reaching 0.5 dB/km in 1976 and 0.2 dB/km in
1979. This last figure can be put into perspective by pointing out that for a fibre 10km long with an attenuation of 0.2
dB/km, about 63% of the light reaches the far end of the fibre. Imagine still being able to see quite clearly through a
window 10 km thick! The development of fibres possessing such low attenuation has provided optical communication
systems with the information carrying channel that they need. It cannot be stressed too strongly how the efforts of
glass scientists have made possible the information technology age.

Reductions in attenuation of modern fibres have been accomplished by developing optical fibre fabrication techniques
that eliminate impurities, particularly hydroxyl ions when the lowest attenuations are required. It should be
acknowledged that the lowest attenuation levels have not been achieved for visible light but at two wavelengths in
the near-infrared part of the spectrum, near 1.3 micrometers (mm) and 1.55 mm. Below figure shows the variation of
attenuation with wavelength of a typical modern fibre. The attenuation in the near-infrared is close to the minimum
achievable values, which are determined by fundamental physical phenomena in the glass, which are not determined
by impurities.

3.5 Absorption in Optical Fibres

Residual absorption in low loss modern optical fibres comes from several sources: residual ultraviolet absorption,
residual infrared absorption, and Rayleigh scattering. Hydroxyl ions (OH-) absorb light near 2.73 mm, with weaker
absorptions at 1.39, 0.95 and 0.72 mm. The hydroxyl content must be kept below 1 part per million (ppm) in order
that the attenuation at 0.9 mm be less than 1 dB/km. Even if the water content of the fibre is minimized, residual
absorption remains from the infrared absorption of the fundamental vibrations of the bonds that make up the glass,
which occur at 7.3 mm for boron-oxygen bonds, 8.0 mm for phosphorous-oxygen bonds, 9.0 mm for silicon-oxygen

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bonds, and 11.0 mm for germanium-oxygen bonds. These absorptions influence the attenuation of the fibre even at
shorter wavelengths. The remaining significant, unavoidable attenuation mechanism in the fibre is Rayleigh scattering
-- the natural tendency for any atom or module to reradiate in all directions a part of the electromagnetic radiation
incident on it. The magnitude of this scattering increases dramatically at shorter wavelengths, and is enhanced by the
random structural character of glass. Indeed it is this phenomenon that causes the sky to appear blue: the shorter
wavelengths in sunlight (the blue light) scatter more strongly than other colors. Microscopic variations in material
density in a glass fibre lead to concomitant variations in refractive index that enhance Rayleigh scattering. This loss
can be minimized by drawing the fibre during production so as to minimize compositional variations.

3.6 Why are Optical Fibres so good for communications?

The information-carrying capacity of an optical fibre is far greater than it is for its competitors: wires, coaxial cables,
and microwave links. In addition, optical fibres are inexpensive to produce, do not conduct electricity (which makes
them immune to disturbance by lightning storms, and other electromagnetic signals – except nuclear radiation), do
not corrode, and are of small size. The primary reason that optical fibres have very much larger information-carrying
capacity than other media, is that they carry light: this might seem a trivially obvious observation but it has
fundamental significance. The frequency of the light beams that travel along optical fibres is in the vicinity of two
hundred trillion cycles per second (Hz). Compare this with the frequency of the latest generation of personal
communication service (PCS) cellular wireless systems – approximately two billion cycles per second (2 GHz). Consider
the frequencies that must be transmitted for voice communications, which cover the range (bandwidth) from about
50Hz to 20,000Hz (20 kHz). Indeed, since there is very little need to include the high frequencies for understandable
voice communications, the actual bandwidth needed is really only about 4 kHz. It is possible, in principle, to carry
about 50 billion voice conversations on a single laser beam in an optical fibre. This capacity results from the very simple
calculation:
2.1014Hz/4.103Hz=50.109.
The entire population of the Earth could be on the phone on a single fibre at the same time! The corresponding
capacity of a PCS link is about 500,000 simultaneous voice channels. In practice, it has not proven possible to achieve
these maximum capacities, although in current links the optical fibre wins by a huge margin. The domination of optical
fibre as a means for carrying information is apparent when we note that such fibres are being manufactured worldwide
at a rate of 2000 miles per hour! Whether an optical or microwave link has the ability to use its full capacity depends
on the way in which the information is encoded, and how different messages are mixed together (multiplexed) without
them all getting mixed up. To understand in more detail how this is done, we must digress and discuss the nature of
digital representations of information and how this influences the way in which information, whether this be voice,
video, or computer data, is encoded and transmitted.

3.7 Digital encoding of Information

Many years ago all information was transferred in an analog format, which meant that the message was transmitted
essentially as an exact copy of the original. The best example comes from early telephones. When a person spoke on
the telephone, a microphone in the handset converted the sound waves from the voice into an electrical signal (varying
electrical voltage or current), which mimicked the variations in air pressure produced by the person’s voice. This analog
signal was sent along electrical wires to its destination, where the electrical signal drove a small loudspeaker and
recreated the sound of the caller’s voice. The principal problem in this scheme was that the electrical signal became
distorted in its passage from caller to listener. And, in addition, the electrical signal had to be amplified along its way
to counteract the loss of energy that naturally occurs to all electrical signals passing along wires. Amplification itself
adds some distortion, as well as adding noise, a randomly fluctuating background electrical disturbance produced in
all electronic systems as a fundamental natural phenomenon. All these problems can be circumvented if the
transmitted electrical signals are digitized – represented in a binary code.
Consider a short duration record of a voice. This could be a time-varying voltage of the form shown schematically in
figure below. At each instant of time, the magnitude of the voltage has a specific value, which can be represented as
V(t). This voltage can on an arbitrary scale be represented by a normal decimal number, say N t). If we convert the
number N into the binary system then it will be written as a series of "ones" and "zeros," called bits. For example, if

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N=59, then we can write:
59=32+16+8+2+1,
Which can be seen to be
59=25+24+23+21+20.
So, the binary representation of 59 is 111011. Note that the "ones" show up where the appropriate power of 2 is
needed to build up the number. This binary number could be represented by the binary voltage signal shown in figure
below.

If we take the values of V(t) at equally spaced time intervals, and represent each value of the voltage by its binary
voltage signal, then we can create a continuous binary representation of the original analog signal. This is called analog
to digital conversion (A/D). To make this binary representation an accurate record of the original signal there must be
sufficient samples of the analog voltage taken, and each must be encoded by sufficient binary bits. The number of
binary bits depends on how faithfully the instantaneous amplitude of the signal must be digitized. If 16 bits are used,

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this means that a scale of 216, namely 65,536, different voltage levels are used to characterize the range of values that
can be taken by the varying voltage V(t). In practice, this means that the loudest sound signal that could be faithfully
reproduced would be equivalent to 65,536, and the quietest would correspond to 1. In addition, samples should be
taken at twice the maximum frequency it is desired to include in the representation of the signal. So, for example,
speech digitized at 8 bits (28=256) to include frequencies up to 4kHz would produce a bit rate of 64,000 bits per second
(b/s). (64,000=8X4, 000X2.) Music digitized at 16 bits to include frequencies up to 20 kHz would need a bit rate of
640,000 bits per second.
Once information has been digitized it can be transmitted from the source of the message (the sender) to its
destination (the receiver) without as much concern about distortion and added noise. At the receiver, unless severe
distortion has occurred during transmission, it is easy to re-create a perfect representation of the transmitted binary
signal, since for each time interval a simple decision must be made – is this a "one" or a "zero".
It is worthwhile considering for a moment the number of bits of digital data associated with the transmission (or
storage) of various kinds of information. A compact disc (CD) with one hour of music typically contains about 680
Megabits (Mbs) of digital data. A computer CD ROM contains a similar quantity of data. Video requires somewhat
larger numbers of bits per hour, because both the picture and accompanying sound must be stored. However, clever
techniques for compressing the imagery can reduce the quantity. The latest generation of digital video discs carry 4.7
Gb of data per side. Double sided, double layered DVDs can carry four times as much data – more than 17 Gb of data.
A single-sided, single-layered disc, stores 133 minutes of film (with accompanying audio), so the average rate of data
transfer during viewing is about 0.6 Mb /s. For real time video transmissions the rate of data transfer required is higher,
in the range from 3 to 5 Mb/s. To download a 2 hour long DVD movie over a link within 10 seconds requires a data
transfer rate of around 0.5 Gb/s. You can’t get such data rates through your phone line! However, if optical fibre is
installed directly to your home this changes your access to information directly. Fibre-to-the-home, as it is called, is
not yet here because of the cost involved – estimated to be around $1,000 per household. The telephone and cable
companies have not identified a current demand for digital communication services that needs the data rates provided
in this way. The technology to do it is here, but not the will for the capital investment required.
In a digital link along an optical fibre the simplest way to represent the data is to switch a laser between two intensity
values, the high value representing a "one", and the low value a "zero." In other words a series of pulses of light are
transmitted, whose occurrence in time represents the times of "ones" with the gaps in between representing the
"zeros." The maximum rate at which such pulses can be transmitted, received, and processed is not at present limited
so much by properties of the fibre, as it is by the speed of the conventional electronics that must switch the laser on
and off, detect the received light pulses and, if required reconvert them back from binary to analog format (digital-to-
analog conversion – D/A). At present, the maximum pulse rate that can be handled in practical systems is about 10
billion bits per second (10 Gb/s). However, recent developments have made possible a massive increase in this data
rate. These developments include the development of the Erbium Doped Fibre Amplifier (EDFA), and wavelength
division multiplexing (WDM). However, before discussing these we must digress to discuss the use of repeaters and
the phenomenon of dispersion.

3.8 Repeaters and Dispersion

As was mentioned earlier, even though modern optical fibres are extremely transparent, attenuation of the intensity
of the light traveling along the fibre still occurs, and over long distances the light signal must be boosted back to a
larger value. This process was traditionally carried out with a repeater. This is a device incorporating a light detector,
processing electronics, and a new laser. An incoming stream of optical pulses, corresponding to the transmitted
information in binary code, is detected and becomes an equivalent stream of electrical pulses. These electrical pulses
are amplified, reshaped electronically to restore their original shape, and are then used to drive the new laser to re-
transmit the information along the next stretch of fibre. In this way, a stream of optical pulses can be transmitted over
great distances, such as under the Atlantic Ocean, by spacing a series of repeaters along the fibre cable. Typically
repeaters are spaced every 45-70 km. Consequently, a long fibre cable must incorporate conventional electrical wires
to provide the power to drive the repeaters.
One great advantage of a system with repeaters is that it has the ability to restore their original shape to propagating
light pulses. There is a natural tendency for an optical pulse traveling along an optical fibre to change its shape. This
results from a phenomenon called dispersion. Dispersion is the change in the velocity of light with the wavelength of

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the light. Usually, shorter wavelengths travel more slowly than longer wavelengths, so for example in a very long fibre
a red pulse of light will get to the far end of the fibre more quickly than a blue pulse. A short optical pulse always
contains a range of wavelengths. Although this might not be obvious, an analogy can be made. A pure musical tone,
in its ideal form gives a sound wave that undulates at a distinct frequency, for example middle C is 523.25 Hz. A pulse
of sound, which might be made for example by the crack of a whip has no such purity and actually contains a range of
sound wave frequencies, called the spectrum of the pulse. A light pulse is no different. The effect of dispersion is to
make a narrow optical pulse become broader the farther along a fibre it travels. If this phenomenon is not dealt with,
it imposes severe limits on the rate at which information can be transmitted over long distances.
Suppose that it is desired to transmit binary encoded data at a rate of 1 Gb/s (one billion bits per second). It should be
fairly obvious that if these optical pulses are to remain distinct they must be separated from each other in time by
about one half of a billionth of a second -- 0.5 nanoseconds (ns). So the pulses should not be longer than about 0.5ns.
If the pulses were able to spread to a width of 1ns they would overlap, and their distinct identity in the pulses stream
would be lost. If these pulses are detected at a repeater before they have spread too much, their original 0.5ns width
can be restored, and the pulses will not continue to broaden in traveling great distance along a fibre. This is the clear
advantage of a fibre system with repeaters. However, there is a disadvantage to repeaters: they cannot distinguish
pulses at one wavelength from pulses at another wavelength. This prevents an increase in the information carrying
capacity of the fibre by simultaneously transmitting different data streams, each corresponding to a train of light pulses
from a laser operating at a different wavelength. For example, if a red and blue laser simultaneously carry two
messages along a fibre, at the far end the two messages can be separated and read simply by using a blue filter to
collect the blue light and a red filter to collect the red light. This scheme is wavelength division multiplexing.
Unfortunately, if a repeater is included, it must be of sufficient complexity to separate the two wavelengths, process
the two electrical signals independently, and then drive two new lasers to re-transmit the messages. This complexity
is avoided by the use of erbium doped fibre amplifiers.

3.9 Erbium doped Fibre Amplifiers (EDFAs)

In 1987 David Payne and his co-workers at the University of Southampton in England reported the operation of the
first practical optical amplifier suitable for light wave communication systems. The EDFA uses an optical fibre with the
rare- earth ion erbium added as an impurity. If optical energy is fed into a section of such a fibre, which uses an auxiliary
laser (called the pump laser), than a stream of optical pulses will pass through the amplifier and each pulse in the
stream will be amplified (boosted in size). This amplification process occurs for a relatively broad wavelength range
near 1.55 mm so many different messages being carried on laser beams of different wavelengths can be
simultaneously amplified. Current developments in this scheme use up to 40 different laser wavelengths (which have
different frequencies) spaced in frequency by 100 GHz. Each wavelength can carry data at 10 Gb/s so the total capacity
of the fibre has been increased to 400 Gb/s. Very soon it appears likely that this will be increased to 80 channels.
The astute reader might notice that this EDFA scheme only amplifies the light pulses, but does not deal with the
problems of pulse width spreading that result from dispersion. At first glance it might appear that if pulses travel great
distances and pass through several EDFAs that they will arrive at their destination with a reasonable amplitude, but
that there will have been cumulative pulse broadening along the entire length of fibre. This problem is dealt with by a
process called dispersion management. By including additional dispersive elements in the optical chain that runs from
transmitter to receiver, it is possible to play off positive and negative dispersion effects against each other and prevent
overall pulse spreading over great distances.
The development of low loss, low overall dispersion, single-mode fibres, with EDFAs to allow long distance
transmission, may serve to satisfy the world's insatiable appetite for ever-increasing data rates. This is graphically
illustrated by figure below, which shows how the data rates of communication channels have grown since the early
days of the telegraph. This figure was drawn in 1995, and is already out of date.
The projected capacity of a single fibre communication channel of 1012 bits per second (1 Terabit/s), which the figure
above suggests will happen around 2,005, is already here. Worldwide Internet traffic is about 1 Terabit per second,
and could therefore, in principle, be carried on a single optical fibre. A typical optical fibre cable containing 8 distinct
fibres will carry 8 Terabits per second, or 20 million Terabits per month. The current level of traffic on the Internet in
North America is about 3000 terabits per month. The information carrying capacity of optical fibre is actually increasing
much faster than linearly on an annual basis. The capacity of optical fibres has increased 100 times in the last ten years

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while the speed of integrated circuits (which are found in all modern electronics such as computers, compact disc
players, and cellular telephones) has increased by only a factor of 60 over the same period.

3.10 Optical Communication Networks

Fibre optic links have been extensively installed worldwide. Most long distance (trunk) lines use single-mode fibre and
increasingly high data rates. A current standard is the 2.488 Gbit/s maximum data rate of SONET (synchronous optical
network). A typical SONET optical fibre link will carry 32,000 simultaneous two-way voice or data channels on one pair
of fibres. SONET is designed to interface with and replace existing communication networks that operate at various
data rates. The lowest level SONET signal is called the Synchronous Transport Signal Level 1 (STS-1), which has a data
rate of 51.84 Mbit/s. Higher data rates are achieved by multiplexing N of these data streams up to a maximum of
N=48. SONET uses single-mode fibre and different types of light source depending on the ranges involved. Short reach
links (up to 2 km) use light emitting diodes (LEDs) or multimode lasers operating at 1.31 mm; intermediate reach links
(up to 15 km) use 50 m W single- or multi-mode laser transmitters operating at 1.31 mm or 1.55 mm. Long reach links
(up to 40 km) use 500 m W laser transmitters at 1.31 mm or 1.55 mm. For local area networks (LANs) that use LED
sources and multimode fibre the Ethernet standard (3 Mbit/s) is widely used, although when higher data rates are
required the Fibre Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) standard is common. This is a 100 Mbit/s channel that through
technological developments allows interfacing of a FDDI optical network with twisted-pair cable for final connection
to transmit/receive users of the network. In these hybrid systems the electrical connection is typically only the last
100 m or so to the user from the fibre-based part of the system. The standard for interfacing FDDI networks via twisted-
pair cables over these typically 100 m connections is called the Twisted-Pair Distributed Data Interface (TPDDI). In
modern optical networks GaAlAs/GaAs lasers are being superseded by 1.3 mm and 1.55 mm. In GaAsP-based lasers
for connections in excess of a few kilometers.

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3.11 Trans-ocean Optical Fibre Cables
The longest fibre links are those that span the world's oceans, including several across the Atlantic from North America
to Europe and several from the United States to Japan. Many additional long distance fibre links exist: by 1995 there
were nine across the Atlantic, four from the United States to Japan, one from Japan to China, with additional links for
Australia, Korea, India, South and Central America, South Africa, and New Zealand. The transatlantic cable laid in 1988
(TAT-8) contains eight fibres and can carry 40,000 telephone calls at one time: each pair of fibres carries 560Mb/s. The
next generation of cables (TAT-9 and TAT-10), which came into service in 1992, carry double this number of calls. TAT-
11 has the same capacity as TAT-9 and TAT-10. It stretches 7,162 km from Manahawkin, New Jersey to a location 600
miles from both Ireland and France where it splits and continues to Swansea, in the U,K, and St. Hillarie in France.
The newest trans-Atlantic cable TAT-12/13 is the first such cable to use EDFAs rather than the old-style repeaters. This
cable forms a ring of undersea segments connecting together cable stations in Green Hill, Rhode Island; Lands End,
England; Penmarch, France; and Shirley, New York. It is 12,400 km long. The segment from Green Hill to Lands End is
5,913 km long. One segment of the cable 3,759 km long was installed by STC Submarine Systems. There are 133 EDFAs
spaced 45 km on the remaining segment 2,154 km long installed by AT&T Submarine Systems. Each of the cable
segments contains two fibre pairs, one used for regular service, and the other for emergency restoration service. The
capacity of each fibre pair is 2.5 Gb/s, so the overall capacity of the system is 10 Gb/s. The two main cables are laid
several hundreds of kilometers apart on the ocean floor, and are routed to avoid hazardous areas, surface and deep-
sea current, seismic activity, military activity, and fishing.
All these fibre cables are heavily armored against shark bites and in the shallow part of the ocean are buried under the
ocean floor to prevent their being snagged by fishing boats. Repeaters (old-style or EDFA) are placed every 45--75 km.
The old-style repeaters have built-in redundancy, incorporating extra detectors and lasers so that if one device fails
the channel remains functional. It is prohibitively expensive to dredge up cables to modify or repair repeaters or
erbium doped fibre amplifiers. Fortunately the reliability of TAT-12/13 is projected to be such that only one undersea
repair per 25 years should be needed.
Tyco Submarine Systems (TSSL) announced that a doubling of capacity of TAT-12/13 would be achieved by July 1998
by upgrading it to 2-wavelength WDM operation. An extension to a third wavelength, which would increase capacity
to 30 Gb/s, is being considered for July, 1999.
In September, 1998, more than 50 communication carriers signed an agreement to construct TAT-14, the next Trans-
Atlantic link, at a cost of $1.5 billion. This cable will use WDM with 8 wavelengths per fibre pair, and has 64 times the
capacity of TAT-12/13. TAT-14 will use 4 fibre cable pairs. Each fibre pair has a capacity of 160 Gb/s, so the total system
capacity is 640 Gb/s. It could carry 7.7 million telephone calls at the same time. About 80% of the cable capacity will
be allocated to Internet and multimedia traffic. If one considers that the lowest typical price for a Trans-Atlantic
telephone call is 10 cents per minute, and probably averages in reality about $1.00 per minute, then the cable pays
for its installation costs in about 24 hours!. Because carriers can charge more for high speed connections the system
(if fully utilized) probably makes back its installation costs in about 12 hours!
Gemini is another Trans-Atlantic fibre cable pair with a capacity of 60 Gb/s that stretches between England (Porthcurno
and Oxwich Bay) and New York City (Manasquan, NJ and Charlestown, RI). The two cables are laid 740 km apart. This
cable was a joint venture of Cable&Wireless and WorldCom.

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3.12 Optical Fibre Network Architectures
Above figure shows three popular topologies of optical networks. In these arrangements of transmitters and receivers,
each transmitter/receiver pair on the network, which is called a node or subscriber can communicate with every other.
The construction of such networks relies on the use of various passive optical components for their implementation.
The most important of these is the fibre coupler, one form of which is shown schematically in figure below that either
splits or combines optical signals. This is a four-port device. In the simplest sense such a device is fabricated by fusing
together two single mode fibres so that their cores come close together, allowing light to leak from one core to the
other. Depending on the splitting ratio between the ports the device can be described as either a tap or splitter.
For example, in figure below, if light enters port 1 it is split on output between ports 3 and 4. Port 2 functions in the
same way, although usually one of ports 1 or 2 will be unused if it is desired to act as a Y (or T) coupler. If the intensities
leaving ports 3 and 4, respectively, on injection of light at port 1 are equal the coupler is referred to as a 3 dB coupler
or splitter, on the other hand if 99% of the input power passes from port 1 to port 3, with only 1% leaving at port 4 the
device is described as a 20 dB coupler or tap.

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3.13 Line-of-sight Optical Links
Line-of-sight optical links, which involve the free space propagation of the encoded light signal from source to receiver,
have only limited, short range application in ground-based situations. Turbulence, scattering, and absorption by the
atmosphere introduce amplitude and phase noise into the transmitted signal and cause significant signal amplitude
decay over moderate distances. However, ground-to-satellite, satellite-to-satellite, and deep-space communication
links represent important application areas for line-of-sight optical communications. When the communication
channel must be guaranteed, as in a commercial satellite ground link, microwaves are generally preferred because
their long wavelengths can penetrate clouds. An optical downlink, even to a generally cloudless location such as the
mountains of Arizona or Hawaii, or the deserts of Australia cannot provide 100% reliable visibility conditions.
Nonetheless, there are specialized applications of such links: a blue-green laser can be transmitted from an aircraft or
satellite and provide a secure high data rate communication channel to a submerged submarine. Optical links between
satellites in near-earth orbit will be of increasing importance in the future for global communications. A series of
satellites in synchronous earth orbit (at a height of 38,600 km) can provide global communications coverage and can
relay information from closer-in satellites used for earth observation. The NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) program
uses such satellites for continuous, long term monitoring of earth resources, climatic conditions, and atmospheric
composition. The primary advantage of optical links for space communications is that a much more directional beam
can be sent from source to receiver, so transmitter requirements for long distance transmission are reduced. The most
challenging application of such a link is in deep-space communications. In explorations of the outer planets in programs
such as Pioneer and Voyager, data is relayed to and from the space craft with microwaves. Because the transmission
distances are so long, high transmitter powers are required, which presents a problem for the space craft end of the
system, which must rely on solar power. If a short wavelength laser is used as the transmitter on the spacecraft, a
substantial reduction in transmitted power is possible because a more directional beam is possible.

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 4.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Fibre
Optics
4.1 Advantages of Optical Fiber Cable
Bandwidth
Fiber optic cables have a much greater bandwidth than metal cables. The amount of information that can be
transmitted per unit time of fiber over other transmission media is its most significant advantage.

Low Power Loss

An optical fiber offers low power loss, which allows for longer transmission distances. In comparison to copper, in a
network, the longest recommended copper distance is 100m while with fiber, it is 2km.

Interference
Fiber optic cables are immune to electromagnetic interference. It can also be run in electrically noisy environments
without concern as electrical noise will not affect fiber.

Size
In comparison to copper, a fiber optic cable has nearly 4.5 times as much capacity as the wire cable has and a cross
sectional area that is 30 times less.

Weight
Fiber optic cables are much thinner and lighter than metal wires. They also occupy less space with cables of the same
information capacity. Lighter weight makes fiber easier to install.

Security
Optical fibers are difficult to tap. As they do not radiate electromagnetic energy, emissions cannot be intercepted. As
physically tapping the fiber takes great skill to do undetected, fiber is the most secure medium available for carrying
sensitive data.

Flexibility
An optical fiber has greater tensile strength than copper or steel fibers of the same diameter. It is flexible, bends easily
and resists most corrosive elements that attack copper cable.

Cost
The raw materials for glass are plentiful, unlike copper. This means glass can be made more cheaply than copper.

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4.2 Disadvantages of Optical Fiber Cable
Difficult to Splice
The optical fibers are difficult to splice, and there are loss of the light in the fiber due to scattering. They have limited
physical arc of cables. If you bend them too much, they will break.

Expensive to Install
The optical fibers are more expensive to install, and they have to be installed by the specialists. They are not as robust
as the wires. Special test equipment is often required to the optical fiber.

Highly Susceptible
The fiber optic cable is a small and compact cable, and it is highly susceptible to becoming cut or damaged during
installation or construction activities. The fiber optic cables can provide tremendous data transmission capabilities. So,
when the fiber optic cabling is chosen as the transmission medium, it is necessary to address restoration, backup and
survivability.

Can’t Be Curved
The transmission on the optical fiber requires repeating at distance intervals. The fibers can be broken or have
transmission losses when wrapped around curves of only a few centimeters radius.

5.
Conclusion
The fiber optics communications industry is an ever evolving one, the growth experience by the industry has been
enormous this past decade. There is still much work to be done to support the need for faster data rates, advanced
switching techniques and more intelligent network architectures that can automatically change dynamically in
response to traffic patterns and at the same time be cost efficient. The trend is expected to continue in the future as
breakthroughs already attained in the laboratory will extend to practical deployment thereby leading to a new
generation in fiber optics communications.
Fiber optic cable has both advantages and disadvantages. However, in the long run, optical fiber will replace copper.
In today’s network, fiber optic cable becomes more popular than before and is widely used Copper led as a leading
optics supplier, provides all kinds of optical fiber cables with high quality and low price for your option.

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