BEng (Hons) Telecommunications

Cohort: BTEL/12/FT

Examinations for 2015 – 2016 / Semester 2

MODULE: Optical Fiber Communications Systems

MODULE CODE: TELC4112

Duration: 3 Hours

Instructions to Candidates:

1. Answer all questions in Section A and any two questions in

Section B
2. Questions may be answered in any order but your answer must
show the question number clearly.
3. Always start a new question on a fresh page.
4. All questions carry equal marks.
5. Total marks 100.

This question paper contains 6 questions and 4 pages.

Page 1 of 4
Optical Fiber Communication Systems (TELC4112) SITE/June 2015/2016 Sem 2
 SECTION A: ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS

QUESTION 1: (20 MARKS)

(a) Draw the block diagram of an optical fiber communication system and explain
the function of each element in detail. (8 marks)
(b) (i) State Snell’s law. (2 marks)
(ii) Define Numerical Aperture. (2 marks)
(iii) Define Acceptance Angle. (2 marks)
(iv)What is the principle used in the working of fiber as light guides? (2 marks)
(c) A fiber with silica core refractive index of 1.458, v=75 and NA=0.3 is to be
operated at 820 nm. What should be its core size and cladding refractive
index? Calculate the total number of modes entering this fiber. (4 marks)

QUESTION 2: (20 MARKS)

(a)Define chromatic dispersion. Describe the causes for chromatic dispersion.
(6 marks)
(b)Differentiate between step index and graded index fibers. (3 marks)
(c) What is a fusion optic splice? Write short notes on the two techniques used
for splicing? (6 marks)
(d)When the mean optical power launched into an 8km length of fiber is 120μW,
the mean optical power at the fiber output is 3μW.
(i) Calculate the overall signal attenuation in dB. (2 marks)
(ii) Calculate the overall signal attenuation for a 10 km optical fiber link
using the same fiber with splices at 1km intervals, each giving an
attenuation of 1 dB. (3 marks)

QUESTION 3: (20 MARKS)

(a) Explain the working of a PIN photodiode in detail. (8 marks)
(b) Explain the mechanisms that cause absorption of energy in optical fibers.
(6 marks)
(c) Differentiate between LED and LD. (6 marks)

Page 2 of 4
Optical Fiber Communication Systems (TELC4112) SITE/June 2015/2016 Sem 2
 SECTION B: ANSWER ANY TWO QUESTIONS

QUESTION 4: (20 MARKS)

(a) Explain the architecture of EDFA in detail. (6 marks)
(b) Write short notes on the different types of receiver noise in a fiber optic
system. (6 marks)
(c) A 1550 nm SM digital fiber optical link needs to operate at 565 Mbps over 50
km without repeaters. A single mode InGaAsp laser diode launched an
average power of -13 dBm into the fiber. The fiber has a loss of 0.35 dB/km
and there is a splice loss of 0.1 dB every km. The coupling loss at the receiver
is 0.5 dB and receiver uses InGaAs APD with sensitivity -39 dBm. Excess
penalty noises are predicted to be 1.5 dB. Set up the power budget link and
system margin. (8 marks)

QUESTION 5: (20 MARKS)

(a) With a neat sketch, describe the direct melt process of drawing optical fibers.
(8 marks)
(b) Draw the structure of ELED and explain its operation. (8 marks)
(c) A 2x2 biconical tapered fiber coupler has an input power level of 200µW. The
output power at the other 3 ports are P 1=90 µW, P2= 85 µW and P3= 6.3 mW.
Find the coupling ratio, excess loss, insertion loss between port 0 and port 1
and crosstalk. (4 marks)

Page 3 of 4
Optical Fiber Communication Systems (TELC4112) SITE/June 2015/2016 Sem 2
 QUESTION 6: (20 MARKS)

(a) Explain the components of link power budget and system rise time budget of
optical communication systems with neat sketches. (10 marks)
(b) An optical power of 150 µW is launched in an optical fiber. The optical fiber
has an attenuation of 0.52 dB/km. The minimum optical power which can be
detected by an optical detector on the receiver side is -45 dBm. No optical
amplifiers are used to amplify and reshape the signal. Every 10 km an optical
fiber joint is required with an attenuation of 1.5 dB. Determine the maximum
possible length of optical fiber. (6 marks)
(c) A multimode step index fiber with a core diameter of 80 μm and a relative
index difference of 1.5% is operating at a wavelength of 0.85 μm. If the core
refractive index is 1.48, estimate the normalized frequency for the fiber and
number of guided modes. (4 marks)

***END OF QUESTION PAPER***

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Optical Fiber Communication Systems (TELC4112) SITE/June 2015/2016 Sem 2