EC6702 – OPTICAL COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKS

UNIT I - INTRODUCTION TO OPTICAL FIBERS

CO1: Explain about the ray theory concepts and circular waveguide. K2
PART A
1. State Snell’s law. (May ’15)
2. Give refractive index expression for step index fiber
3. It is desired to make a single-mode fiber at an operating wavelength=1300 nm with
ncore=1.505 and nclad= 1.502.Find the Numerical Aperture and core radius or core size
(May ’14)(Nov’18)
4. Give the refractive index expression of a graded index fiber. (Dec ’06)
5. Define Numerical Aperture of a step index fiber. (Dec’14) (Nov’16)
6. Define Mode-field diameter.
7. A point source of light if 12 cm below the surface of a large body of water (n=1.33).
What is the radius of the largest circle on the water surface through which the light can
emerge? Find θc from Snell's law.
8. Commonly available single mode fibers have beat lengths in the range 10 cm < Lp<2
m. What range of refractive index differences does this correspond to (for λ = 1300
nm)? (May ’06)
9. What are the major elements of an optical transmission link?
10. Write down the wavelength regions corresponding to 1st 2nd and 3rd windows.
11. What are the two principal photo detectors used in a fiber-optic link?
12. What’s meant by refractive index of a material?
13. What’s critical angle of incidence?
14. Explain whether cladding is necessary.
.15. What types of fibers are used commonly?
16. What are all the advantages offered by multimode fibers than single mode fibers?
17. What is cut-off condition?
18. Consider a parabolic index waveguide with n1 =1.75, n2 =1.677and core radius
25μm. Calculate the numerical aperture at the axis and at a point 20 μm from the axis.
19. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the ray optics theory? (Nov ‘08)
20. For a fiber with core refractive index of 1.54 and fractional refractive index
difference of 0.01, calculate its numerical aperture (Nov/Dec-2013)
21. For n1=1.55 and n2= 1.52, calculate the critical angle and Numerical aperture.
(May‘13) (May ’15)
22. What is a linearly polarized mode? (May-2013)
23. List any two advantages of single mode fibers. (Nov ’14)
24. Determine the normalized frequency at 820 nm for a step index fiber having a 25µm
radius. The refractive indices of the cladding and core are 1.45 and 1.47 respectively.
How many modes propagate in this fiber at 820nm? (Nov ‘13)
25. Distinguish meridional rays and skew rays. (May ‘14) (Nov’18)
26. What is total internal reflection in a fiber? (Nov ’15) (Nov’16)
27. Define phase and group delay. (Nov ’15)
28. What are the conditions for light to get propagated inside a fiber? (Nov ‘16)
29. What are the conditions for the single mode propagation? (May ‘16)
30. What are the advantages of Optical fibre and State the reason to opt for Optical
Fiber Communication. (April-2017) (Apr’18)

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31. A multimode silica fibre has a core refractive index n1=1.48 and cladding refractive
index of n2=1.46.Find the numerical aperture of the fibre. (April-2017)
32. Why partial reflection does not suffice the propagation of Light? (Nov-2017)
33. A graded index optical fiber has a core with a parabolic refractive index profile
which has a diameter of 50 µm. The fiber has a numerical aperture of 0.2. Calculate the
total number of guided modes in the fiber when it is operating at a wavelength of 1 µm.
(Nov-2017)
34. Sketch the cross sectional view of the transverse electric field vectors for the four
lowest order modes in a step index fiber.(Apr’18)
35. A manufacturing engineer wants to make an optical fiber that has a core index of
1.480 and cladding index of 1.478. What should be the core size for single mode
operation at 1550 nm? (Nov’18)

PART B
1. (i)What is Numerical Aperture of an optical Fiber? Deduce an expression for the same. (5)
(May ‘16)
(ii) Calculate NA of silica fiber with its core refractive index of 1.48 and cladding
refractive
index of 1.46. What should be the new value of n1 in order to change the NA to 0.23?
(Dec’11) (May ’15)
2. (i) Explain the differences between meridional and skew rays.
(ii)Explain briefly Phase and Group Velocities (Nov 2013)
3. A graded index fiber has a core with a parabolic refractive index profile which has a
diameter of 50μm. The fiber has a numerical aperture of 0.2. Estimate the number of guided
modes propagating in the fiber when it is operating at a wavelength of 1μm. (4) (Nov’16)
(Nov’18)(Apr’18)
4.(i)With the neat block diagram, explain the fundamental block of Optical Fiber
Communication. (Apr’18) (Nov’18)
(or) Draw the block diagram of a fiber optic transmission links and describe function of each
component. ( 8 ) (Nov 2013) (Nov’16)(April-2017)
(ii)Distinguish Step-index from graded index fibers. (12) (Nov-2011) (May ’15) (Nov’16)
5. A silica fiber with core diameter large enough to be considered by ray theory analysis has a
core refractive index of 1.50 and cladding refractive index of 1.47. Determine
(a) The critical angle at the core cladding interface
(b) The NA for the fiber
(c) The acceptance angle in air for the fiber. (Apr’18)
6. (i)Calculate the diameter of the fiber core of relative refractive index difference is 10%,
core refractive index n1 = 1.5, No. of modes propagation is 1100 and wavelength of
operation is 1.3 μm, (ii) Write short notes on Cylindrical Fibers.
7. (i) Define the normalized frequency for an optical fiber and explain its use.(Nov-14)
(ii) Discuss on the transmission of light through graded index fiber. (Nov-14)
8. (i) Draw and explain ray theory transmission in an optical communication.
(ii) With diagram explain acceptance angle numerical aperture and total internal
reflection. (May ’14) (Nov ’15)(Nov’18)
9. With diagram explain Electromagnetic mode theory of optical propagation. (Nov ’15).
10. Consider a fiber with 25 µm core radius, core index n1 – 1.48 and Δ = 0.01. If λ = 1320
nm, what value of V and how many modes propagate in the fiber. What percent of optical
power flows in the cladding? If the core cladding difference is reduced to Δ = 0.003, how
many modes does the fiber support and what fraction of the optical power flows in the
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cladding? (8) (Nov ‘16)
11. A step index fiber with numerical aperture of 0.2 supports approximately 1000 modes at
an 850nm wavelength. What is the diameter of its core? How many modes dose the fiber
supports at 850nm and 1550nm? (April-2017)
12. i. Find the core radius necessary for single mode operation at 1320nm of a step index
fiber with n1=1.48 and n2=1.478.Determine NA and acceptance angle of the fiber? (ii)
Derive the wave equation for cylindrical fiber. (April-2017)
13. Discuss whether TEM waves exist in optical fiber. If not what type of mode will
propagate in a practical optical fiber? (Nov-17)
14. Consider a multimode fiber that has a core refractive index of 1.480 and a core cladding
index difference of 2%. Find the numerical aperture, the acceptance angle and the critical
angle of the fiber.(Nov’18)

UNIT-II-SIGNAL DEGRADATION OPTICAL FIBERS

CO2: Determine the losses and signal degradation of fibers. K3

PART A

1. Define signal attenuation. (Nov-2013) (May/June’15) (Nov-2017)

2. What are the causes of absorption? (Nov ‘16)
3. What are atomic defects?
4. How does impurity absorption loss occur?
5. What are the types of bends that can be subjected to a fiber? (May ’15)
6. How does intrinsic absorption occur? (Nov/Dec-14) (Nov ‘16)
7. What’s Urbach’s rule?
8. Why does an increase in attenuation result from micro bending?
9. What are micro bends? How are they caused in the fiber?
10. Identify the causes of scattering loss. (May ’14)
11. How can you minimize micro bending losses?
12. What are the two main causes of intra modal dispersion?
13. How does waveguide dispersion occur?
14. List the basic attenuation mechanisms in an optical fiber. (Dec ’14)
15. What is meant by mode coupling? What causes it? (May ’06, Nov ’06)
16. What are the causes of absorption? (May ’05) (Nov ‘16)
17. An optical signal has lost 55%of its power after traversing 3.5 km of fiber. What is
the loss in dB/km of this fiber? (Dec ’04, May ’14)
18. Give the expression of the effective number of modes that are guided by a curved
multimode fiber of radius ‘a’. (Dec ’04, May’05, Nov’05)
19. Define Group delay (Nov ‘08) (April-2017)
20. What is Rayeligh Scattering? (May ‘13)
21. What is elastic and inelastic scattering? (Apr’18)
22. What is Mode Coupling?
23. What is Profile Dispersion?
24. Distinguish between Intramodal and Intermodal Dispersion. (Nov’18)
25. Define Dispersion flattening?
26. What is effective cut-off wavelength?
27. What do you mean by polarization mode dispersion in a fiber? (Nov ’15) (Nov ‘16)
(Apr’18)(Nov’18)
28. A fiber has an attenuation of 0.5 dB/Km at 1500nm. If 0.5mW of optical power is
initially launched into the fiber, what is the power level in after 25Km? (Nov’15)
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29. What do you understand by phase and group velocity? (May ‘16)
30. What is chromatic dispersion? (May ’16)
31. What is intermodal dispersion? (April-2017)
32. A manufacturer’s data sheet lists the material dispersion D mat=110ps/nm.km at a
wavelength of 860 nm. Find the RMS pulse broadening per Km due to material
dispersion if the optical source has a spectral width = 40 nm at b an output wavelength
of 860nm.
(Nov-2017)

PART B

1. Explain in detail with necessary mathematical expressions the various attenuation

mechanisms in optical fiber. (May ’14) (May ’15) (Nov ’15) (May ‘16) (Nov’18)
2. (i)What do you mean by Dispersion?
(ii) Explain in detail chromatic dispersion in single mode fibers.
3. Clearly bring out the differences between intra and inter modal Dispersion with necessary
diagrams. (Nov ’13, May ’14)
4. Discuss the attenuation encountered in optical fiber communication due to: Bending,
Scattering, Absorption (Nov ’13) (Apr’18)
5. What do you meant by pulse broadening? Explain its effect on information carrying
capacity of a fiber. (Nov ’11)
6. i)Derive expression for material dispersion and waveguide dispersion and explain them.
(Nov ’15)(Apr’18)
ii) Describe various fiber connectors and couplers. (May ’13)
7. A double hetero - junction LED emitting at a peak wavelength of 1310 nm has radiative
and non- radiative recombination time of 45 ns and 95 ns respectively. The drive current is 35
mA. Determine internal quantum efficiency and internal power level. If the refractive index
of the light source material is n = 3.5, find the power emitted from the device.
8. When the mean optical power launched into an 8km length of fiber is 120μW, the mean
optical power at the fiber output is 3 μW. Determine (a) Overall signal attenuation in dB/km
(b) The overall signal attenuation for a 10Km optical link using the same fiber with splices at
1Km intervals, each giving an attenuation of 1dB.
(c) Numerical input/output power ratio.(Apr’18)
9. (i) Describe the mechanism of intermodal dispersion in a multimode step index fiber. Show
that the total broadening of a light pulse due to intermodal dispersion in multimode step
index fiber may be given by δTs = L(NA) 2/2n1c, where L is the fiber length, NA is the
numerical aperture, ni is the core refractive index and c is the velocity of light in a vacuum.
(ii). A multimode step index fiber has a numerical aperture of 0.2 and a core refractive index
of 1.47. Estimate the bandwidth distance product for the fiber assuming only intermodal
dispersion and return to zero code when (i) there is no mode coupling between the guided
modes, (ii) mode coupling between the guided modes gives a characteristics length
equivalent of 0.6 of the actual fiber length. (6) (May ‘16)
10. What are the causes for signal attenuation in optical fiber? Explain about in detail.
(Apr’17)
11. Derive an expression for pulse broadening in graded index fiber.(April-17)
12. In detail, explain linear scattering loss. (Nov-17)
13. A multimode step index fiber has a numerical aperture of 0.3 and a core refractive index
of 1.45. The material dispersion of the fiber is 250 ps nm -1Km-1 which makes the material
dispersion the totally dominating chromatic dispersion mechanism. Estimate (a) the total

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RMS pulse broadening per km. when the fiber is used with an LED source of rms spectral
width 50nm and (b) the corresponding band width-length product of the fiber.
(Nov-17)(Apr’18)
14. IIustrate the different Lensing schemes available to improve the power coupling
efficiency.(Apr’18)
15. (i) Prove that, delay difference between axial ray and extreme meridional ray is
δTs = L∆n1/C.(Nov’18)
(ii) A 6 km optical link consist of multimode step index fiber, with a core RI of .5 and
relative refractive index difference of 1%. Estimate
(1)Delay difference between slowest and fastest modes at the fiber output.
(2)RMS pulse broadening due to intermodal dispersion on the link.
(3)Maximum bit rate that may be obtained without sustainable errors on the link
assuming only intermodal dispersion.
16. A Continuous 40km long optical fiber link has a loss of 0.4dB/km (Nov’18)
(1) What is the minimum optical power level that must be launched into the fiber to
maintain an optical power level of 2 µw at the receiving end?
(2) What is the required input power if the fiber has a loss of 0.6 dB/km?