Optical Sources

Light Sources

The fundamental function of sources is to convert electrical energy in the form

of a current into optical energy (light) in an efficient manner which allows the
light output to be effectively launched or coupled into the optical fiber.

Three main types of optical light source are available. These are:
1. wideband ‘continuous spectra’ sources (incandescent lamps);
2. monochromatic incoherent sources (light-emitting diodes, LEDs);
3. monochromatic coherent sources (lasers)
Light-Emitting Diode(LED)
• Converts electrical signal into light signal
• It works similar to normal p-n diode and use forward-reverse
bias.
Workings
When the diode is forward biased, the minority electrons are sent
from p → n , while the minority holes are sent from n → p.

At the junction boundary, the concentration of minority carriers

increases. The excess minority carriers at the junction recombine
with the majority charges carriers.

Since electrons moves from higher energy level to lower energy

level, they emit energy.
𝒉𝒄
𝑬 𝒈= 𝑬 𝒄 − 𝑬 𝒗 =
𝝀

Materials:
GaAs( Infrared => remote
control)
GaP (Red/Green)
GaAsP(Red/yellow)
Advantages
1. Simpler fabrication. There are no mirror facets and in some structures
no striped geometry.
2. Cost. The simpler construction of the LED leads to much reduced cost
which is always likely to be maintained.
3. Reliability. The LED does not exhibit catastrophic degradation and has
proved far less sensitive to gradual degradation than the injection laser.
It is also immune to self-pulsation and modal noise problems.
4. Generally less temperature dependence. The light output against current
characteristic is less affected by temperature than the corresponding
characteristic for the injection laser. Furthermore, the LED is not a
threshold device and therefore raising the temperature does not increase
the threshold current above the operating point and hence halt operation.
5. Simpler drive circuitry. This is due to the generally lower drive currents
and reduced temperature dependence which makes temperature
compensation circuits unnecessary.
6. Linearity. Ideally, the LED has a linear light output against current
characteristic, unlike the injection laser. This can prove advantageous
where analog modulation is concerned.

Drawbacks
(a) generally lower optical power coupled into a fiber (microwatts);
(b) usually lower modulation bandwidth;
(c) harmonic distortion
 LED Power and Quantum Efficiency
Efficiency:
i. Internal efficiency: ratio of electron generated to injected
photons
ii. External efficiency: ratio output optical power to generated
optical/photon power

rr is the radiative recombination rate per unit

volume
rnr is the non-radiative recombination rate per
unit volume.

Rr is the total number of radiative

recombinations per second
Rt is the total number of recombinations per
second

The internally generated power/

Optical power generated by LED:
Total recombination lifetime:

The external power efficiency is defined as the ratio of the

optical power emitted externally Pe to the electric power
provided to the device P
𝟏
¿ 𝟐
𝒏 ( 𝒏 +𝟏 )
A further loss is encountered when coupling the
light output into a fiber. Coupling coefficient can
be expressed by:
𝑷𝒄
¿ ×𝟏𝟎𝟎 %
𝑷𝒆
the coupling efficiency allows estimates for the
percentage of optical power coupled into the step
index fiber relative to the amount of optical power
emitted from the LED.
LED Structures
There are six major types of LED structure:
i. Planar LED
ii. Dome LED
iii. Surface emitter LED
iv. Edge emitter,
v. Super luminescent and
vi. Resonant cavity LED
 Planar LED

 Simplest structures

 Fabricated by either liquid- or vapor-phase epitaxial processes

 p-type diffusion into the n-type substrate in order to create the
junction
 Forward current flow through the junction and the device emits
light from all surfaces
 Only a limited amount of light escapes the structure due to total
internal reflection.
Surface Emitting LED
 Restrict the emission to
a small active region
within the device
 homostructure devices
was to use an etched
well in a GaAs
substrate in order to
prevent heavy
absorption of the
emitted radiation, and
physically to
accommodate the fiber

 -p GaAs => lightly dopped, p AlGaAs => Moderately dopped,

+p GaAs => highly dopped
 Double hetero junction
 Metallization is used to provide electrical connection
 Heat sink is provided to increase the lifetime of LED
  Etching is done to
minimize the distance
between light emitting
surface and active
region. Which will
reduce the absorption of
emitted radiation and
thus increase the
efficiency.

 The cylindrical structure is directly connected to optical

fiber => increase efficiency.
The power coupled Pc into a multimode step index fiber may be
estimated from the relationship:

where r is the Fresnel reflection coefficient at the fiber surface,

A is the smaller of the fiber core cross-section or the emission
area of the source and
RD is the radiance of the source.
 Edge Emitter LED

 p+, p, p-/n- region

 Double heterojunction layer
 p+, p-/n act as light guiding layer.
 Refractive index of light guiding layer should be lower than that
of active region and higher than surrounding layers. So light will
easily refracted into the guiding layer and remain bound into it
due to TIR.
LASER (Light Amplification by Stimulated
Emission of Radiation)
Laser often use as an optical oscillator.
LASER provides monochromatic, highly coherent radiation.

 Absorption\Stimulated absorption;
 Spontaneous emission;
 Stimulated emission
Workings

When a photon with energy (E2 - E1) is incident on the atom it

may be excited into the higher energy state E2 through absorption
of the photon. This process is sometimes referred to as
stimulated absorption.
Spontaneous emission: in which the atom returns to the lower
energy state in an entirely random manner;

The random nature of the spontaneous emission process where

light is emitted by electronic transitions from a large number of
atoms gives incoherent radiation. A similar emission process in
semiconductors provides the basic mechanism for light
generation within the LED.
when a photon having an energy equal to the energy
difference between the two states (E2 - E1) interacts
with the atom in the upper energy state causing it to
return to the lower state with the creation of a second
photon.
It is the stimulated emission process, however, which gives the laser
its special properties as an optical source.

Firstly, the photon produced by stimulated emission is generally* of

an identical energy to the one which caused it and hence the light
associated with them is of the same frequency.

Secondly, the light associated with the stimulating and stimulated

photon is in phase and has the same polarization. Therefore, in
contrast to spontaneous emission, coherent radiation is obtained.

Furthermore, this means that when an atom is stimulated to emit

light energy by an incident wave, the liberated energy can add to the
wave in a constructive manner, providing amplification.

*A photon with energy hf will not necessarily always stimulate another

photon with energy hf. Photons may be stimulated over a small range of
energies around hf providing an emission which has a finite frequency or
wavelength spread (linewidth). Hf >=W(Work function)
Einstein Relations
Population at any energy state,

g is the constant corresponding to degeneracies. No of

sublevels within the energy level, E.

For thermal equilibrium, rate of upward transition and downward

transition must be equal.
The population of the two energy levels of such a system is
described by Boltzmann statistics which give:
Population Inversion

Under the conditions of thermal equilibrium given by the Boltzmann

distribution, the lower energy level E1 of the two-level atomic system
contains more atoms than the upper energy level E2 .
However, to achieve optical amplification it is necessary to create a
nonequilibrium distribution of atoms such that the population of the
upper energy level is greater than that of the lower energy level (i.e.
N2 > N1). This condition, which is known as population inversion.
In order to achieve population inversion it is necessary to excite
atoms into the upper energy level E2 and hence obtain a
nonequilibrium distribution. This process is achieved using an
external energy source and is referred to as ‘pumping’.

A common method used for pumping involves the application of

intense radiation (e.g. from an optical flash tube or high-frequency
radio field).

Population inversion, however, may be obtained in systems with

three or four energy levels.

Metastable state
With suitable pumping the electrons in some of the atoms may be excited
from the ground state into the higher level E2. Since E2 is a normal level
the electrons will rapidly decay by nonradiative processes to either E1 or
directly to E0.

The metastable level E1 exhibits a much longer lifetime than E2 which

allows a large number of atoms to accumulate at E1.

Over a period the density of atoms in the metastable state N1 increases

above those in the ground state N0 and a population inversion is obtained
between these two levels.
Light amplification in the laser occurs when a photon colliding
with an atom in the excited energy state causes the stimulated
emission of a second photon and then both these photons release
two more.

Continuation of this process effectively creates avalanche

multiplication, and when the electromagnetic waves associated
with these photons are in phase, amplified coherent emission is
obtained.

To achieve this laser action it is necessary to contain photons

within the laser medium and maintain the conditions for
coherence. This is accomplished by placing or forming mirrors
(plane or curved) at either end of the amplifying medium.
The optical spacing between the mirrors is L, the resonance condition
along the axis of the cavity is given by:

q is an integer related to modes. No of modes.

Discrete emission frequencies f are defined by:

Separation of frequency between modes:

Modulation of LED

1. Digital Modulation
2. Analog Modulation
Digital Modulation
 Digital Modulation
For the series circuit, an opened
switch permits no current, shutting
off the LED.

Closing the switch produces

current,
where is the diode's forward
voltage drop. The resistor R and the
supply voltage determine the
current for a given diode.

The parallel switched modulator in Fig. 10-4(b) works similarly to

the series circuit. Closing the switch shuts the LED off by
bypassing the current to ground. Opening the switch sends all the
current through the branch containing the LED, turning it on.
Digital Modulation
The operation of the LED for binary digital transmission
requires the switching on and off of a current in the range of
several tens to several hundreds of milliamperes.

This single-stage circuit

provides current gain as well as
giving only a small
voltage drop across the switch
when the transmitter is in
saturation (i.e. when the
collector –base junction is
forward biased, the emitter to
collector voltage VCE (sat) is
around 0.3 V).
Digital Modulation
A small input current (~1 mA) controls the
larger current (50-100 mA) required by the
LED. R1 and R2 are chosen to impedance-
match the signal source to the transistor. The
input capacitor C increases the speed of the
circuit, if needed. This modulator can operate
up to 30 MHz.
Analog Modulation
 Analog Modulation
The supply voltage Vdc,
together with resistors Ra
and Rb, provides the dc base
current IB.
IB forward-biases the base-
emitter junction, turning the
transistor on (ie., causing
flow of collector current).
The resulting collector
current is
where ẞ is the transistor's
current-amplification factor.
is the LED bias current,
labeled Ide in Eq. (6.5)
Example: 7.1,7.3,7.4,6.1,6.2
Exercise: 7.3,6.2,6.12