Introduction to Fibre Optic

Communication
Mid Sweden University
Outline

• Optical Fibres (Magnus)

• Fibre Amplifiers (Magnus)

• Pump Sources (Magnus, Kent)

• Optical Devices (Kent)

• Optical Soliton Systems (Kent)

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Optical Communication Systems

Terrestial
– Long haul
– Metropolitan
– Office

Submarine

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Properties of Optical Fibres

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Transmission Wavelengths

Loss mechanisms:
– Material absorption
– Rayleigh scattering

< 0.25 dB/km loss @ ~1.5 µm

< 0.5 dB/km loss @ 1.2 - 1.6 µm

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Dispersion

• Modal dispersion

• Chromatic dispersion
– material dispersion
– waveguide dispersion

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Optical Fibre types

Multi-mode fibres Single-mode fibres

– Core size ~50 - 100µm – Core size ~3 - 10 µm
Advantages Advantages
– Large NA – No modal dispersion
– LED signal light source – Large bandwidth
can be used Disadvantages
– Inexpensive – Small NA
Disadvantages – Laser signal light source
– Large modal dispersion must be used
– Small bandwidth – Expensive

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Single-Mode Fibre Types

• Standard single-mode fibre (SMF)

– λ0 @ 1310 nm
– Dcrom< 20 ps/nm-km @ 1550 nm

• Dispersion-shifted fibre (DSF)

– λ0 @ 1550 nm

• Nonzero dispersion fibre (NDF)

– Small chromatic dispersion @ 1550
nm to reduce penalties from FWM
and other nonlinearities

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Limiting factors for high bit-
rate and transmission distance

Pulse broadening:
– Modal dispersion ~ 10 ns/km
– Chromatic dispersion ~ 0.1 ns/km

Nonlinear optical effects:

– Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), PT ~ 1-3 mW
– Stimulated Raman scattering (SRS), PT ~ 1-2 W
– Self phase modulation (SPM)
– Four wave mixing (FWM) (multi-channel systems)

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Optical Amplifiers

• Rare-earth doped fibre amplifiers

– EDFA
– TDFA
– PDFA
– NDFA

• Raman Fibre amplifiers

• Semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA)

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Application of Optical Amplifiers

• In-line amplifiers
– replaces regenerators

• Power amplifiers
– boost signals to compensate fibre losses

• Preamplifiers
– boost the recieved signals

• LAN amplifiers
– compensate distribution losses in local-
area networks

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Erbium Doped Fibre Amplifier (EDFA)

• Very few components

• High reliability

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Optical Amplifier

Characteristics of an ideal amplifier

• High pump absorption

• Large spectral bandwidth
• Gain flatness
• High QE
• Low noise
• High gain
• High reliability (submarine systems)

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Origin of Noise in Fibre Amplifiers

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Noise Mechanisms

• Signal hetrodynes with ASE: signal -

spontanous beat noise

• ASE heterodynes with itself:

Spontanous - spontanous beat noise

• Amplified signal shot noise - negligible

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Noise Figure

• NF = SNRin / SNRout

• NF will always be greater than one, due to added ASE noise

• The NF-value is usually given in dB

• Noise figures close to 3 dB have been obtained in EDFAs (ideal

amplifier)

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Erbium Doped Fibre Amplifier

Spectroscopic properties

• Long upper level life time ~10 ms

• No ESA for 980 and 1480 nm pump
• Best GE @ 980 nm
• 100% QE
• NF close to 3 dB

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Erbium Doped Fibre Amplifier

Optical properties for different

glass hosts

• Wider stimulated emission

• Wider amplification bandwidth

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Erbium Doped Fibre Amplifier

Gain spectrum

• Gain peak @ 1535 nm

• Broad spectral BW ~ 40 nm

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EDFA Input/Output Characteristics

• Fibre NA = 0.16

• Fibre length = 9 m

• 200 mW of pump power @ 980 nm

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Erbium Doped Fibre Amplifier

EDFA design

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Gain Efficiency vs Pump Wavelength

980 nm ~ 11 dB/mw

1480 nm ~ 5 dB/mw

830 nm ~ 1.3 dB/mw

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 980 nm vs 1480 nm pumping EDFAs

980 nm pump 1480 nm pumps

• Low noise • Higher noise

• Need higher drive current -
• Wasted energy because
heat dissipation required -
electrons must relax
expensive
unproductively
• Smaller GE
• Higher GE • Large tolerance in pump
• Narrow absorption band ~ 2 nm wavelength ~ 20 nm

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Tm-Doped Fibre Amplifier (TDFA)

• Gain @ 1470 nm (S-band)

• Pumping @ 1060 nm
• Low QE ~ 4%
• Measured lifetime @ 3H4 ~ 0.6 ms

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Pr-doped Fibre Amplifiers (PDFA)

• Resonance @ 1.32 µm
• Low QE ~ 4%
• GE < 0.2 dB/mW
• Two pumping wavelengths:
– InGaAs laser @ 1017 nm (< 50
mW output)
– Nd:YLF crystal laser @ 1047 nm
(ineffective & expensive)

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 Pr-doped Fibre Amplifiers (PDFA)

Results so far:
• QE of ~ 5% in ZBLAN glass
• QE of ~ 19 % in GLS glass (University of Southampton, 1998)
• Small signal gains ~ 38 dB
• Saturated output powers of up to 200 mW
• NF ~ 15 dB

Problem:
• Require glass compositions with low phonon energies
• Non-silica based – splicing difficulties
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Nd-doped Fibre Amplifiers (NDFA)

• Gain @ 1310 – 1360 nm if doped in ZBLAN

• Gain @ 1360 – 1400 nm if doped in Silica.
• Strong ESA at signal wavelength
• NF good, but not as good as in EDFAs
• Limited performance due to competing
radiative transitions
• Splicing difficulties

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Raman Amplifiers

Characteristics

• Uses SRS in intrinsic silica fibres

• Require high pump powers
• Broad gain spectrum
• Max. gain @ 60 - 100 nm above
pump wavelength

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Raman Amplifiers

Gain spectrum

• 9 km gain fibre
• Gain peak ~ 60 - 100 nm above
pump wavelength
• Low NF ~ 5 dB
• Peak gain is 18 dB
• Pump wavelength 1455 nm

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Multi-Wavelength pumping

Dual Wavelength Pumping

• Pump wavelengths: 1420 nm
and 1450 nm
• Large spectral BW ~ 50 nm
• Low NF ~ 5 dB

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Raman Amplifier

Advantages Disadvantages
• SRS effect is present in all fibres • Fast response time
• Gain at any wavelength • High pump powers required
• Low NF due to low ASE • High power pumps are
expensive at the wavelengths of
interest

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Pumping

Core pumping Cladding pumping

• Low NF ~ 3.5 dB
• High cost • NF ~ 6 dB
• High complexity • Low cost
• Low complexity

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Dubble Clad Optical Fibre

• Core size ~ 10 –15 µm • Increase pump absorption by

• Core NA ~ 0.12 – 0.2 co-doping with Yb
• Pump cladding size ~ 100 – 400 µm
• Pump cladding NA ~ 0.4
• Effective pump absorption
coefficient αeff = αcore(Acore/Acladding)
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Fibre Design

Problem: Pump absorption

low, rays will miss doped
core

Solution: break symmetry

a) Offset core, hard to splice

b) Difficult to make
c) Not difficult to make

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Launching schemes

a) Straightforward, but
inconvenient to use
b) Looks simple, but is
difficult to make
c) Possible problem: fibre
damage – fibre gets hot
and may brake

Typical launching efficiency ~

70 – 80%

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Fibre Lasers

• Simple design with very few components

• Very narrow line width (10 kHz)
• For use as a signal source, some external
modulator must be used
• High power output are obtainable in cw-
mode ~4W, ~ 10 W in pulsed mode

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Yb-doped Fibre Laser

• Strong absorption and emission band

@ 976 nm
• High power pumps is required ~ 3 W
• Absorption @ 915 - 940 is weaker but
wider

Results so far:
• 500 mW (J. Minelly, Corning)
• 800 mW (A. Kurkow, GPI, Moscow)

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 The future of Fibre Amplifiers

• Increase in spectral bandwidth ~ 140 nm (hybrid solutions)

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Prototype for a large BW - amplifier

Hybrid solution EDFA + TDFA

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Latest Developments

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END OF PART I

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