TE 381: Optical

Communications
Lecture 1: Course Information & Introduction
Course Information
▪ Instructor: Prof. James Dzisi Gadze
▪ Phone: 020 689 1515
▪ E-mail: jdgadze@gmail.com
▪ Office: Room 319, FECE Building

▪ TA: Franklin George Amoo

▪ Phone: 054 460 0281
▪ E-mail: franklinamoo804@gmail.com

▪ TA: Daniels Destinie David Atterh

▪ Phone: 020 000 6140
▪ E-mail: danielsdestinie356@gmail.com
Introduction
▪ Why the need for Telecom Engineering?
▪ Why optical communication?
▪ What is optical communication: The basic blocks
▪ Course content
Introduction
▪ What need of people/device does
▪ Telecom Engineering addresses?
Introduction
▪ People have principal need
▪ to communicate (exchange information)
▪ This need created interests in developing communication systems

▪ Communication systems
▪ Send messages/data from one place to another
▪ Use SIGNALS to represent messages/data
▪ Signals are in the form of electromagnetic energy
EM Radiation & Spectrum
▪ Electromagnetic radiation
▪ Wave of electric and magnetic fields
▪ Form of energy emitted and absorbed by charge particles

▪ The electromagnetic (EM) spectrum

▪ Span/range of all types of EM radiation
▪ Organize by frequency or wavelength
▪ Divided into separate bands
EM Spectrum
Electromagnetic Spectrum
Introduction
▪ Large proportion of
▪ the electromagnetic spectrum was utilized to develop and deploy
progressively more sophisticated and reliable
▪ Electrical/electronic communication systems with larger capacity for
conveying information
1. Copper Cable (Wired)
2. Coaxial (Wired)
3. Cellular (Wireless)
4. Microwave (Wireless)
5. Satellite (Wireless)
Cellular
Microwave
Satellite
Introduction
▪ In the past communication was confined to
▪ Narrowband voice signals
▪ Electronic communication
▪ Voltage/current signal
Why the need for Optical
Communication?
▪ Demand on telecommunication systems for
▪ high information carrying capacity
Why the need for Optical
Communication?
▪ Why more capacity?
▪ Information age
▪ Produce more information than goods
▪ Use of digital transmission
▪ Reliable but requires more channel capacity than analog transmission
▪ Though
▪ Information carrying capacity is priority one for most system users
▪ It cannot be increased as much as we would like
Information-Carrying Capacity
▪ The major limit on information-carrying capacity is
▪ shown by the Shannon-Hartley theorem

▪ The information-carrying capacity is

▪ proportional to the channel bandwidth
▪ The channel bandwidth is limited by the
▪ frequency of the signal carrier
▪ Thus the higher the carrier’s frequency, the greater the channel
bandwidth and the higher the information-carrying capacity of the system
▪ Rule of thumb
▪ Bandwidth is approximately 10% of the carrier-signal frequency
Why Optical Communications?
▪ High carrier frequency: (Extremely wide bandwidth)
▪ a wavelength of 1552.5 nm corresponds to a center frequency of 193.1
THz
▪ consequently orders of magnitude increase in available transmission bandwidth &
larger information capacity
▪ Optical Fibers
▪ have small size & light weight
▪ are immune to electromagnetic interference (high voltage transmission
lines, radar systems, power electronic systems, airborne systems
Why Optical Communications?
▪ Lack of EMI cross talk between channels
▪ Availability of
▪ very low loss Fibers (0.25 to 0.3 dB/km)
▪ high performance active & passive photonic components such as
tunable lasers, very sensitive photodetectors, couplers, filters
▪ Low cost systems for data rates in excess of Gbit/s
Advantages- Summary
▪ Very high bandwidth (10 - 500 GHz, typ.)
▪ Very low attenuation (lowest 0.16 dB/km)
▪ Immune to EMI
▪ Data security (almost impossible to tap information)
▪ Lower system cost (fewer repeaters due to low attenuation of
fibers)
▪ Small size and low weight
▪ Very low Bit Error Rate ( < 10-10 typically)
Optical Communication System
Most fiber optic communications systems operate in the infrared
region of the spectrum

Optical Spectrum (Partial)

Ultraviolet Visible Infrared

0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 1.0 1.5 2.0

Wavelength (m)
Overview of Optical Communications
▪ Optical communication technology involves the
▪ emission, transmission and detection of LIGHT

▪ The scope of optical communications:

1- Generation of Light
2- Transmission of Light (through free space & fibers)
3- Processing of Light Signals
(modulation, switching, amplification, frequency conversion)
4- Detection of Light
Major elements of Fiber Optic Communication Link
Elements of Fiber Optic Communication Link
Elements of Optical Communication Link
▪ Transmitter
▪ Electronic transmitter
▪ information converted into electrical form
▪ modulated and multiplexed
▪ the signal then moves to the optical transmitter
▪ Optical transmitter
▪ electrical signal converted into optical form
▪ at its heart is the light source
Elements of Optical Communication Link

▪ Optical Fiber
▪ Thin transparent flexible filament that guides light from a transmitter to
a receiver
▪ Receiver
▪ Converts an optical signal back into an electrical signal
▪ the key component is photodetector
Optical Fiber System
Free Space Optical (FSO) Communications
Course Objective
▪ To introduce students
▪ to the fundamental principles of optical communication systems
▪ Thus
▪ To provide students with the understanding of
▪ the function and performance characteristics of the major elements
in an optical link
▪ We will describe/study the
▪ various technologies, implementation methodologies, and
performance measurement techniques that make optical fiber
communication systems possible
Learning Outcomes
▪ At the end of this course, students should:
▪ Explain the physics of light
▪ Understand and be able to explain the physical principles of how an
optical fiber guides light
▪ Be able to estimate the limitations on transmission speed and/or
distance caused by attenuation and dispersion
▪ Understand and be able to explain the operating principles, advantages
and limiting characteristics of semiconductor light sources
▪ Understand and be able to explain the operating principles of
semiconductor photo-detectors
Learning Outcomes
▪ At the end of this course, students should:
▪ Be able to estimate the receiver sensitivity for PIN and APD
photodetectors
▪ Design fiber optic communication links limited by loss and/or fiber
dispersion
▪ Demonstrate understanding of the concepts behind the operation of
optical fibers, light sources and optical receivers
▪ Be able to analyse optical communication systems
▪ Demonstrate understanding of the concept of WDM
Course Outline
▪ Physics of light
▪ The geometric view: Beams or rays
▪ The quantum view: Stream of photons
▪ The wave view: Electromagnetic waves
▪ Optical fiber
▪ How optical fibers conduct light (light propagation)
▪ Optical fiber characteristics
▪ Underlying concepts
▪ Optical fiber configurations
▪ Optical fiber modes (mode description and cutoff conditions)
▪ Single mode
▪ Multimode
• Step-index
• Graded index
Course Outline
▪ Signal Degradation in fiber
▪ Losses (Attenuation)
▪ Intrinsic loss mechanisms
▪ Bending loss
▪ Coupling loss
▪ Loss measurement (LAB)
▪ Dispersion
▪ Group delay distortion in multimode fibers (Intermodal dispersion)
▪ Dispersion mechanisms in single mode fibers
▪ Group Velocity Dispersion
▪ Chromatic dispersion
• Materials dispersion
• Waveguide dispersion
▪ Optical pulse propagation and broadening
▪ Dispersion Measurement (LAB)
Course Outline
▪ Light sources
▪ Basic light emission mechanisms in semiconductors
▪ Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs)
▪ Laser Diodes
▪ Light detectors
▪ Receiver components
▪ Basic light absorption concepts in semiconductors
▪ Photodetectors
▪ pn
▪ p-i-n
▪ Avalanche
▪ Response time and photodetector noise
▪ Bit error rate and receiver sensitivity
▪ Detectors and noise studies (LAB)
Course Outline
▪ System Fundamentals
▪ Design guidelines
▪ Point-to-point link power budgets
▪ BER Measurements
▪ Multichannel systems
▪ Performance measurement and monitoring
▪ Optical spectrum analyzer
▪ Optical time-domain reflectometer
▪ Bit error rate test set
▪ Eye diagram analysis
▪ Advanced Topics
▪ Optical amplifiers
▪ Soliton propagation
Course Outline
▪ Laboratory
▪ Loss measurement
▪ Fiber coupling/splicing
▪ Dispersion measurement
▪ Optical emitter characterization
▪ Detectors and noise studies
▪ Link characterization
Reference Books
1. Optical Fiber Communications
by Gerd Keiser
2. Fiber-Optic Communication Systems
by Govind P Agrawal
3. An introduction to Optical fibers
by Allen, H Cherin
The Evolution of Fiber Optic Systems
▪ First generation
▪ Developed in 1975
▪ Used GaAs semiconductor lasers, multimode fibers and silicon
detectors
▪ operated around 850 nm. Bit rate 45-140 Mb/s with 10 km repeater
spacing
▪ Second generation
▪ Used InGaAsP semiconductor lasers
▪ operated at 1300 nm and bit rate of (622 Mb/s-2.5 Gb/s)
▪ Both multimode and single mode fibers were used with 50 km repeater
spacing
The Evolution of Fiber Optic Systems
▪ Third generation systems
▪ operated around 1550 nm since the fiber loss @ 1550 nm is the lowest.
▪ Transmission rates – 2.5 Gb/s on single mode fiber with 100 km repeater spacing
▪ Fourth generation systems
▪ operated at 1550 nm
▪ Made used of optical amplifiers (EDFA) as replacement of repeaters and utilized
WDM to increase data rates
▪ Operated at a data rate of 5-10 Gbps over 11300 km
▪ Fifth generation system
▪ Used dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) and concept of optical solitions
▪ Operated at 40 Gbps
THANK YOU