Measurement methods in

optical fibers

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 CONTENTS
Fiber Attenuation Measurement
Fiber Dispersion Measurement
Fiber Refractive Index Profile Measurement
Fiber Numerical Aperture Measurement

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 MEASUREMENT OF
ATTENUATION
Defined as the loss of optical power as a result of absorption,
scattering, bending, and other loss mechanisms as the light
travels through the fiber
cutback technique
involves comparing the optical power transmitted through a
long piece of fiber to the power transmitted through a very
short piece of the fiber

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 Experiment setup

Tungsten halogen
lamp
PD

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 The total attenuation A between two arbitrary points X and Y
on the fiber is A(dB) = (10/L) log10 (Px/Py)
Px is the power output at point X.
Py is the power output at point Y.
Point X is assumed to be closer to the optical source than
point Y
L is the length of the fiber cut (distance btw X and Y).
Cannot be used for multi mode fibers, because in a multimode
fiber different mode groups suffer different attenuation rates
In a long multi mode optical fiber, equilibrium-mode
distribution (EMD) is established after propagation through a
sufficiently long length of the fiber. In such a case the output
mode distribution becomes independent of the launch
conditions

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 PULSE DISPERSION
MEASUREMENT
Optical fibers may possess very high bandwidth
Determines the information transmission capabilities of the
optical fiber
Dispersion effects may be characterized by taking
measurements of the impulse response of the fiber in the time
domain or by measuring the baseband frequency response in
frequency domain
The main reason for pulse dispersion are
Intermodal dispersion(Different rays take different times )
Material dispersion(different wavelengths take different amounts of time to
propagate along the same path)
Waveguide dispersion(dispersive nature of the medium)

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 Multimode Fibers
Mode scrambler

2 2 2
f = o - i
i(3dB) and o(3dB) is pulse width at fiber input and
fiber output respectively 7
 Single mode Fibers
Dispersion in single-mode fibers is specified in terms of the
wavelength of zero dispersion lz and the dispersion slope at
the zero dispersion wavelength S0 (ZDW).
Single-mode fibers suffer from chromatic dispersion that is,
variation of group velocity with wavelength.

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 Interferometric Technique

mirror

A source having spectral width Dl has coherence length l2/ Dl.

Light is passed through the test fiber and reference arm and
interference if there between the two beams
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 ctL=L0+2l
t is the delay per unit length of the fiber
c is the speed of light
for different center wavelengths if
we measure we obtain t(l) , lz
and S0 can be obtained

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 FIBER REFRACTIVE INDEX
PROFILE MEASUREMENT
The refractive index profile of the fiber core plays an
important role in characterizing different other properties of
optical fibers.
Therefore it is essential that fiber manufactures produce
accurate profile fibers and thus it is essential to measure
refractive index accurately.
Different techniques for measurement:
Interferometric Method
Near field scanning method
Refractive Near field method

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 Interferometric Method

This method involves use of interference microscopes.

Technique usually involves the preparation of thin slice of
fiber(slab) which has both ends accurately polished.
The slab is often immersed in an index matching fluid and
the assembly is examined with an interference microscope.

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 The fringe displacement for the points within the fiber core
are then measured using parallel fringes in fiber cladding as
a reference.
Refractive index between two points can be measured from
fringe shift q, (no. of fringe displacement)
dn=ql/x
q is fringe shift
is difference in refractive index
x is thickness of slab
is incident optical wavelength

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 Transmitted Near-field Method

This method is based on the fact that if all guided modes of a

multimode fiber are excited equally, then the near-field power
distribution P(r) ( the variation of optical power P(r) with radial
distance r from the axis) is given by

P(0) is the correction factor

Thus profile described by f(r/a) can be estimated by just measuring

P(r).
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 Experiment setup

Incoherent
source
NA=0.2 to 0.3

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 Refracted Near Field Method

This method is complimentary to transmitted near field techniques, but

has the advantage that it does not require leaky mode correction factor
or equal mode execution.
It provides refractive index difference directly without any external
calibration.

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 Advantages Of Rnf Over Tnf

No leaky mode correction is required.

A coherent source such as a laser can be used.
Very high resolutions in refractive index (~ 10-4 ) are possible.
RNF method can be used to profile single-mode fibers also.

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 FIBER NUMERICAL APERTURE
MEASUREMENT
It can be thought of as representing the size or "degree of
openness" of the input acceptance cone.

Far field power

distribution

Multi mode- far field range in cm

Single mode- far field range in mm
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 The output power is monitored and maximum acceptance
angle is obtained when power drops to 5% of maximum
intensity
Thus numerical aperture of fiber can be obtained from
following equation
NA = sin(q) = (n12-n22)0.5

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 REFERENCES
R Conde ,C Depeursinge , B Gisin , N Gisin B Groebli,
Refractive index profile and geometry measurements in
multicore fibres Applied Optics Laboratory, Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology in Lausanne, CH-Ecublens-CP 127, CH-
1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Ajoy Ghatak ,K. Thyagarajan, Introduction to fiber optics,
Cambridge University Press

WEBSITES
electron6.phys.utk.edu
http://nptel.ac.in

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THANK YOU

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