OPTICAL FIBRES Optical fibres are wires made of pure silica glass which are used to transmit light

from one place to another. Hence they are called as Light Guides. Light is guided through them using the phenomenon of total internal reflection.

It consists of a central cylindrical rod made of glass with a refractive index n1 . It is called the Core. It is surrounded by an outer cylindrical jacket of trans parent plastic that has the refractive index n2 . It is called Cladding. n1 is always greater than n2 .

Light is transmitted in the fibre by Total Internal Reflection i.e. when light travels from a denser to a rarer medium, if the angle of incidence is more than the critical angle, light is totally internally reflected back to the first medium. Now consider a ray of light shown by ray 1 in diagram. It is incident into the core of the fibre, after refraction it travels inside the core and reaches the core-cladding boundary. There it undergoes another refraction and finally comes out of the optical fibre. 1 Now consider ray 2 which is incident at an angle 0 , it is refracted into the core with an angle c. When this reaches the core-cladding boundary, it will have an angle of Seetharamachar K L | Physics -AIT

incidence 90- c which is the critical angle there. Hence after refraction the ray travels along the surface of the core and will not go out of the fibre. If a ray of light is incident into the core like ray-3 with angle of incidence < 0 , after refraction it will reach the core cladding boundary making an angle > c until it reaches the other end of the optical fibre. Hence the light is contained in the fibre itself. Acceptance Angle: Any light incident on the core within the maximum external incident angle 0 is coupled into the fibre and will propagate. This angle is called the acceptance angle. Acceptance Cone: The angle 0 rotated about the core axis forms a cone and the light which travels within this cone defined by the acceptance angle is trapped and guided. This cone is referred to as Acceptance Cone. Numerical Aperture (NA): If is defined as the Sine of the fibre acceptance angle. NA = Sin 0 It gives the light gathering ability of the optical fibre. Fractional Index: n1 n2 n1 It is defined as the ratio of difference in refractive indices of core and cladding to the core. = Condition for propagation (NA in terms of n1 & n2 ) Consider an optical fibre. Let n1 & n2 be the refractive indices of core and cladding. Let n0 be the refractive index of the surrounding medium. Let an incident ray make an angle 0 with the axis of the core and get refracted at an angle r. Let 1 be the angel of incidence at the cladding core interface.

Using Snells law, we can write n0 Sin Or Sin

0

= n1 Sin 0 ----------- (1) n1 = Sin r ---------- (2) n0

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For the ray at Core/Cladding interface using Snells law again n1 Sin 1 = n1 Sin 2 ----------- (1) n1 Sin(90- r) = n2 Sin90 ----------- (1) for r is again considered as alternate angle 2 = 90 for TIR n1 Cos r = n2 Cos r = n2 n1 ----- (3)
1 = 90- r

at interface

Rewriting equation (2) Sin

0

n1 n0 Using (3)

1 Cos2

n1 Sin
0

n2 2 1 n1 2 n1 2 - n2 2 n1 2 n1 2 - n2 2 n1 2

= n0 n1

Sin

= n0

Sin

Assuming the surrounding medium as air n0 = 1 Sin Since Sin

0 0

n1 2 - n2 2

= numerical aperture (NA) n1 2 - n2 2

NA = If 3
i

is the angle at which light falls, then i< 0 Sin i < Sin 0 or Sin i < NA which is the condition for propagation.

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Modes of propagation (V Parameter) The number of rays of light that can be guided through the optical fibre is called Modes of Propagation. It is defined using V parameter 2 a V n1 2 - n2 2 The total number of modes N is given by N = V2 /2 Types of Optical Fibre 1) Single mode Step-index fibre:

This fibre is made of a small core with diameter 5-10 m and thick cladding with diameter 40-100 m and a suitable protective sheathing. Both the core and the cladding have uniform but different refractive indices. Since the index profile forms a step due to sudden change in the refractive index between the core and the cladding it is termed as step-index fibre. This can transmit only one mode of wave propagation. This type of fibres is suited for long distance, high data rate and high-speed transmission lines.

2) Multimode step-index fibre: 4

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This fibre is made of core with diameter 50-100 m and cladding with diameter 100-200 m since it has a large core size and V parameter greater than 2.4 it can transmit number of modes. Since scattering and absorption losses are more in this type, it is used for low bandwidth, short distance communications only. 3) Multimode Graded-Index Fibre:

5 The index profile shows that refractive index of cladding is constant but the refractive index of core reaches the maximum at the centre and decreases towards the cladding. Seetharamachar K L | Physics -AIT

The core diameter is about 500 to 200 m and that of cladding 100 to 250 m. these fibres are suited for large bandwidth, medium distance & medium bit rate communications. Attenuation: When light passes through the optical fibre its intensity decreases. Hence the light power inserted into the fibre will not be same which is received at the other end. This loss of power is called attenuation. It is measured in units of dB.

1 dB / Km =

-10 L

Log (

Pin Pout

Where L is length of fibre in kms Pin is light power input into fibre Pout is light power received at the end of the fibre. Attenuation is due to absorption, scattering and bend-losses. a) Absorption: This type of loss is due to impurities. The impurity which causes significant losses is OH (Hydroxyl) ion which forms SioH bend. This bend absorbs the energy and is converted into heat in the fibre. This loss is overcome by the technique Vapour Phase Action Deposition Technique. b) Scattering:

Scattering loss occurs due to density fluctuation formed during the manufacturing of the fibre. When the fibre is manufactured, variation in molecular density takes place. When light reaches these places, it gets scattered in different directions and energy is lost. Rayleigh Scattering: If the size of the density fluctuation is less than that of 1/10 th of , it is Rayleigh Scattering. But Rayleigh Scattering is proportional to 1/ 4 . Hence by using light of longer wavelength Rayleigh Scattering is reduced. 6

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c) Bend Losses: Micro Bends

They are formed in the fibre either during manufacturing or of external stress. These microbends have small radius of curvature and scatter light causing loss in intensity.

Macro Bend

They have large radius of curvature such that the incidence angle of the light ray falls below the critical angle and no total internal reflection takes place. Due to this some of the light energy escapes and it is lost.

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Point to point communication (Optical Fibres) Analog Signals Coder Optical Transmitter Fibre Optical Repeater

Analog Signal

Decoder

Photo Detector

Optical F i b r e

Optical fibre communication is the transmission of information by propagation of optical signal through optical fibres over the required distance. The voice gives rise to electrical signals in analog form which comes out from the transmitting end of the telephone. These signals are fed to coder, which converts the analog signal into digital signal (binary data). The digital signal is then modulated and converted into optical signal by the optical transmitter which consists of LED or laser Diode. The optical signal is then fed to optical fibre. Due to attenuation there will be loss in optical energy. Hence from the optical fibre the signal is fed to Repeater where the entire process is repeated the signal is amplified and reenergized. From the repeater the signal is fed to photo detector where the optical signal is converted into electrical signal (digital) is then fed to decoder which converts digital signal into analog signal which will be the same information such as Voice. Advantages: 1. Large Bandwidth: It has a wider bandwidth and can transmit audio & video signals and data on a single line. 2. Electromagnetic Interference: Since electromagnetic radiation has no effect on the optical wave, it is free of electromagnetic interference. 3. Electrical Hazards: Since optical fibres carry only the light signals, there is no problem of short-circuiting and shock hazards. 8 4. Security: The tapping of the light wave if done, leads to loss of signal and can be easily detected, hence the transmission is secure.

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5. Low attenuation: Compared to copper cables the loss in optical fibres is very low. 6. Size and weight: very little space. They are small in size, light weight, have a long life and occupy

SUPERCONDUCTIVITY Introduction: The electrical resistivity of many metals and alloys drops suddenly to zero when the specimen is cooled to sufficiently low temperature. This phenomenon, called superconductivity, was first observed by Dutch physicist H.K.Onnes in his low temperature laboratory in 1911.He found that in many metals, alloys and chemical compounds the electrical resistivity vanishes entirely below a certain temperature and by this he has given a new dimension to physics called low temperature physics. In the course of his experiments he observed that as purified Mercury is cooled using liquid helium which has a boiling point around 4K, its resistivity vanishes entirely at 4.2K.Above this temperature the resistivity is small but finite, while the resistivity below this temperature is so small that it is essentially zero .Onnes realized, that he was dealing with a new state of matter below a transition temperature and coined the term Superconducting state and the temperature at which the transition takes place is called critical temperature TC . Above critical temperature the substance is in familiar normal state but below TC it enters an entirely new state called superconducting state. In normal conductors resistivity decreases with reduction in temperature, but reaches some constant value i which is the residual resistivity, which exists in impure metals which is temperature independent. However the resistivity of some pure conductors reduces to zero at the temperature nearer to absolute temperature. But not all the pure conductors at lowest temperature are superconductors.

Resistivity ()

Superconducting state Normal state

Tc

T emperature (T)

9 In fact the best conducting material at room temperatures like Cu, Ag, Au even in their purest form are not superconductors even at 0K. Seetharamachar K L | Physics -AIT

Important properties of superconductors: 1. Zero resistance : the most well known property of superconductors is that they have zero resistance. Because of this there is no joule heating effect, it takes no energy to make current flow in the conductor and no energy is lost in friction to sustain the current. Therefore its conductivity is finite .if a current is flowing in a superconducting ring; the current will flow without any attenuation for several years(105 years) if its superconducting state is maintained. Such a steady current which flows without diminishing in strength is called persistent current. These persistent current have been observed to last for several years with no measurable losses 2. Destruction of superconductivity by magnetic fields : A sufficiently strong magnetic field will destroy the superconductivity .If a strong enough magnetic field called the critical field is applied to a superconducting specimen it becomes normal and it recovers its normal resistivity even at T<Tc. The critical field is a function of temperature .It has been found empirically that the variation is represented by
Hc T Hc 0 1 T Tc
2

Where Hc (0) is the field at T=0K and is maximum at 0K and vanishes at T=Tc. This is expected because at T=Tc the specimen is already normal and no field is required for transition .the plot of critical field versus temperature for several superconductors is shown in figure. The critical field is typically of the order of several hundred guass.Below table gives the critical field at 0K for some superconductors.

H c (0) Hc (T) Superconducting state Normal state

Tc
Temperature in K

10

3. Perfect diamagnetism or Meissner effect: In 1933 the two German physicists, Meissner and Ochsenfeld, observed that, when the specimen is placed in a weak magnetic field and is then cooled below the transition temperature, then at the

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transition the magnetic lines are expelled suddenly and completely from the specimen i.e. B=0 inside the specimen. This effect is called Meissner effect. Superconducting Sphere

Normal Sphere
Cool

T > TC H < HC The magnetic induction inside the specimen is given by, B = Where H is the external intensity of the magnetic field. M is the magnetization in the medium.
0

T < TC H < HC
H M

B
But
M H

M H H

(susceptibility)

Since B=0 in superconducting state, M= -H Meaning that magnetization is equal and opposite to H, that means = - 1. The medium is therefore diamagnetic. Such a condition in which the magnetization cancels external intensity exactly is referred to as perfect diamagnetism. Thus perfect diamagnetism is an essential property of the superconducting state. Further it is also observed that the effect is reversible i.e., when the temperature is raised from below Tc, the flux suddenly penetrates the specimen after it reaches the Tc and the substance is in the normal state. Types of superconductors: Depending on their response to the external magnetic field superconductors are classified in to two types (1) Type-I superconductors or soft superconductors (2) Type-II superconductors or hard superconductors Type I superconductors: These superconductors when placed in a magnetic field excludes the magnetic field completely from the interior of the body till the body attains a critical value Hc.Therefore these superconductors exhibit complete Meissner effect. The magnetization curve for type-I superconductors is as shown in figure. Below a critical field Hc these will exhibit perfect diamagnetism. Once the applied field is increased above the critical field, it penetrates in the material completely and thus the material returns to its normal resistance state abruptly. These superconductors which give

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away their property of superconductivity at lower field strengths are also referred as the soft superconductors. Examples for these soft superconductors are Al, Pb, Sn etc

Type-I
-M

Hc
Applied magnetic field

Type II Superconductors: These superconductors when placed in a magnetic field, the Meissner effect is satisfied up to a field Hc1 after which the flux penetrates the specimen and the specimen becomes completely normal at the still higher field Hc2 which is a H critical field. Figure below shows the magnetic behavior of such a superconductor. This curve shows that for H<Hc1 , materials exhibits perfect diamagnetism and as the field H exceeds Hc1 the flux begins to penetrate and for H=Hc2 the flux penetration occurs completely and the material becomes normal. The fields Hc1 and Hc2 are called as lower and upper critical fields. In the field interval between Hc1 and Hc2 the substance is said to be in the mixed state. The type- II superconductors are also called as hard superconductors because relatively large fields are needed to bring them back to the normal state. Examples for type-II superconductors are transition metals and alloys like Nb3 Sn, Nb3 Ge etc.

-M

Type-II
Superconducting

state

Vortex state

Normal state

Hc1 Hc2 Applied magnetic field

BCS theory of superconductivity: 12 The modern theory of superconductivity was proposed by Bardeen, Cooper and Schriffer in 1957, which has successfully explained all the features of superconductivity.

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According to this theory electrons exist as Cooper pairs. Each pair forms a bound state, the attractive force necessary such a state being created by phonons exchanged between the pair, so a net attraction can be achieved if the electrons interact with each other via the motion of the crystal lattice as the lattice structure is distorted by a passing electrons. Thus the lattice acts as a media for the attractive interaction between the electrons. During the flow of current suppose an electron is passing through the lattice, then because of its arrival lattice ions move inward towards the electron, i.e., positive ion is displaced from its mean position. So electron gets screened by the positive ions, this screening greatly reduces the effective charge of this electron. Due to the attraction between the electron and ion core, the lattice gets deformed. And as a result there is a slight increase in the phonon field near that electron. This interaction between electron and lattice ions is called electron-lattice interaction. When another electron subsequently passes by the distorted lattice then it is also attracted towards first electron because of relatively high phonon field. The second electron will not see the bare electron as it is screened by the positive ions. Then the interaction between the two electrons happens via the phonon field. This interaction is called as electron-latticeelectron interaction. The interaction is said to be due to the exchange of virtual phonons between the electrons. The net effect is that the two electrons have exchanged some momentum with each other. Thus, the two electrons attractively interact in the phonon field are known as cooper pairs. The energy of the bound state is less than the energy of Free State and the difference of energy of the two states is known as binding energy of cooper pairs. If the temperature is less than critical temperature, electronlattice- electron interaction is stronger than electron-electron Coulomb interaction and thus electrons tend to pair up. These cooper pairs act collectively rather than independently and thus they will behave as giant quantum state. All these cooper pair will move with uniform velocity so the possibility of scattering is very very less, and thus it is possible to get zero resistance. Applications of superconductivity:

1. Lossless transmission: Whenever a current is passed through a conductor a certain amount of current is lost in the form of heat. According to joule heating effect, the amount of heat produced is proportional to I2 R, where I is the current and R is the resistance of the current. If the power is transmitted from the place where the current is generated to the place where it is required, huge amount of power is lost due to a large value of resistance of the conductor. But the resistance of superconductor is zero. So the power is not wasted in the form of heat if the superconductors are used for the power transmission. 2. Superconducting magnets: An electromagnet made by superconducting wire is called superconducting magnet. A magnet consists of a superconducting coil in which currents flow generating a large magnetic field. While magnetizing the material there is no loss of energy due to joule heating effect. So to magnetize the material a small Seetharamachar K L | Physics -AIT

13

current is used. The superconductors used for this purpose should have high critical fields. The most widely used materials are type-II superconductors like Nb-Ti(Tc=9.46K) and Nb3 Sn compounds. 3. Maglev vehicle:
Carriage Wheels Superconducting M agnet Aluminum Guide way

Fig: Maglev vehicle Maglev stands for magnetically levitated train. Maglev vehicles do not slide on a steel rail but float on a 10 to 15 mm air cushion over a strongly magnetized track. Magnetic leviation is based on Meissner effect. Maglev consists of a superconducting magnet which is placed at the base of a carriage .The carriage floats on alluminium guide way by magnetic levitation. The magnetic levitation is produced by enormous magnetic field produced by the superconducting magnet and the induced field in the guide way. When a current is passed through the guide way it induces a magnetic field in it. So there is a great repulsion between the field produced by superconducting magnet and the induced field. This repulsion not only helps to levitate the vehicle but also help in propelling the vehicle forward. The aluminum guide way is not a continuous one it is made up of number of segments. So the segment on which the carriage is there only that is activated and once the carriage is moved to the next segment next one is activated and so on .Maglev caches are provided with retractable wheels. The purpose of these wheels is same as that of airplane wheels which are used only in case of take off and landing. 4. SQUID: The acronym for SQUID is Superconducting QUantum Interference D evice. It is a double junction quantum interferometer formed from two Josephson junctions. The Josephson junction is the one in which two superconductors are separated by a small (1-2nm) insulation gap. So that cooper pairs can tunnel through the gap. This tunneling leads to two kinds of effects namely dc-josephson effect and ac-josephson effect. In dc-josephson effect under zero dc voltage application tunneling of cooper pairs results in dc current. But if a dc voltage is applied across the junction then an alternating current is developed across the junction this is acjosephson effect. In squid magnetometer two parallel junctions are mounted on a superconducting ring as shown in the figure. Under zero voltage condition we get dc current from both the junctions and let J1 and J2 are current densities from both junction 1 and junction 2 Seetharamachar K L | Physics -AIT

14

respectively. When the magnetic field is normally applied to the squid it induces some current

J1

J2

B 2

Fig: Squid- magnetometer

So the total current is the sum of both junction currents and is of the form e where is total flux, 0 is the phase J 2J 0 sin 0 cos c difference. Thus the total current depends on flux . So by measuring current we can detect change in applied magnetic field. The periodic variation of current as a function of is as shown in the figure.

I It can be observed from the graph that the current is maximum at particular values of e and it is maximum when =s, where s is an c integer.

15

These ultra sensitive devices are used as magnetometers and voltmeters. These squid magnetometers are used to detect the paramagnetic response in liver and other Seetharamachar K L | Physics -AIT

organs of the body like brain, heart etc. The neurological current produce some field which is of the order of 10-15 T.Thus squid can detect even the feeble fields of the order of10-15 T.Squid magnetometers are also used for geological changes of earths field in rocks. High temperature Superconductors: Till 1977 highest Tc achieved was 23K for Nb3 Ge. But later in 1986 Bednorz and Muller reported their discovery on different class of superconductors having their Tc values nearer to 100K considerably greater than metallic superconductors. These are not metals but copper oxides which fall under ceramics. These are called as high temperature superconductors. These superconductors having Tc are achieved by using liquid nitrogen (B.P.=77K) which is 500 times cheaper than liquid helium. Table below shows few high temperature superconductors and their critical temperatures. HIGH TEMPERATURE CRITICAL TEMPERATURE SUPERCONDUCTORS (TC ) Y-Ba-Cu-O 92K Bi-Ba-Cu-O 110K Th-Ba-Sr-Cu-O 130K Hg-Bi-Ba-Sr-Cu-O 150K However these superconductors with high Tc are not commercially used. Mainly due to their inherent brittleness, inability to carry high current densities and difficulty in forming in to wires. Once these difficulties are overcome, such superconductors find potential applications.

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