Light Propagation In

Optical Fiber

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 Introduction
• An optical fiber is a very thin strand of silica glass in geometry
quite like a human hair. In reality it is a very narrow, very long
glass cylinder with special characteristics. When light enters one
end of the fiber it travels (confined within the fiber) until it leaves
the fiber at the other end. Two critical factors stand out:
– Very little light is lost in its journey along the fiber
– Fiber can bend around corners and the light will stay within it and
be guided around the corners.
• An optical fiber consists of two parts: the core and the cladding.
The core is a narrow cylindrical strand of glass and the cladding
is a tubular jacket surrounding it. The core has a (slightly) higher
refractive index than the cladding. This means that the boundary
(interface) between the core and the cladding acts as a perfect
mirror. Light traveling along the core is confined by the mirror to
stay within it - even when the fiber bends around a corner.

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 BASIC PRINCIPLE

When a light ray travelling in one material hits a different material

and reflects back into the original material without any loss of
light, total internal reflection is said to occur.
Since the core and cladding are constructed from different
compositions of glass, theoretically, light entering the core is
confined to the boundaries of the core because it reflects back
whenever it hits the cladding.
For total internal reflection to occur, the index of refraction of the
core must be higher than that of the cladding, and the incidence
angle is larger than the critical angle.

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What Makes The Light Stay in Fiber

• Refraction
– The light waves spread out along its beam.
– Speed of light depend on the material used
called refractive index.
• Speed of light in the material = speed of light in the free
space/refractive index

– Lower refractive index  higher speed

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 The Light is Refracted

Lower Refractive index Region

This end travels

further than the
other hand

Higher Refractive index Region

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 Total Internal Reflection
• Total internal reflection reflects 100% of the light
• A typical mirror only reflects about 90%
• Fish tank analogy

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 Refraction
• When a light ray encounters a boundary separating two different
media, part of the ray is reflected back into the first medium and
the remainder is bent (or refracted) as it enters the second
material. (Light entering an optical fiber bends in towards the
center of the fiber – refraction)

Refraction

LED or
LASER
Source
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 Reflection
• Light inside an optical fiber bounces off the cladding -
reflection

Reflection

LED or
LASER
Source

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 Critical Angle
• If light inside an optical fiber strikes the cladding too steeply, the light
refracts into the cladding - determined by the critical angle. (There
will come a time when, eventually, the angle of refraction reaches
90o and the light is refracted along the boundary between the two
materials. The angle of incidence which results in this effect is called
the critical angle).

n1Sin X=n2Sin90o

Critical Angle

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 Angle of Incidence
• Also incident angle
• Measured from perpendicular
• Exercise: Mark two more incident angles

Incident Angles

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 Angle of Reflection
• Also reflection angle
• Measured from perpendicular
• Exercise: Mark the other reflection angle

Reflection Angle

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 Reflection

Thus light is perfectly reflected at an

interface between two materials of different
refractive index if:
– The light is incident on the interface
from the side of higher refractive index.
– The angle θ is greater than a specific
value called the “critical angle”.

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 Angle of Refraction
• Also refraction angle
• Measured from perpendicular
• Exercise: Mark the other refraction angle

Refraction Angle

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 Angle Summary
• Three important angles
• The reflection angle always equals the incident angle

Refraction Angle

Incident Angles

Reflection Angle

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 Index of Refraction
• n = c/v
– c = velocity of light in a vacuum
– v = velocity of light in a specific
medium Light bends
away from
• light bends as it passes from one normal - higher
medium to another with a different n to lower n
index of refraction
– air, n is about 1
– glass, n is about 1.4

Light bends in towards normal -

lower n to higher n

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 Snell’s Law
• The angles of the rays are measured
with respect to the normal.
• n1sin 1=n2sin 2
• Where
– n1 and n2 are refractive index of two
materials
– 1and 2 the angle of incident and
refraction respectively

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 Snell’s Law
• The amount light is bent by refraction is given by
Snell’s Law:
n1sinq1 = n2sinq2
• Light is always refracted into a fiber (although
there will be a certain amount of Fresnel reflection)
• Light can either bounce off the cladding (TIR) or
refract into the cladding

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 Snell’s Law

Normal
Refraction
Angle(2)

Lower Refractive index(n2)

Ray of light Higher Refractive index(n1)

Incidence
Angle(1)

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 Snell’s Law (Example 1)
• Calculate the angle of refraction at the air/core
interface
• Solution - use Snell’s law: n1sinq1 = n2sinq2
– 1sin(30°) = 1.47sin(qrefraction)
– qrefraction = sin-1(sin(30°)/1.47)
– qrefraction = 19.89°

nair = 1
ncore = 1.47
ncladding = 1.45
qincident = 30°

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 Snell’s Law (Example 2)

• Calculate the angle of refraction at the

core/cladding interface
• Solution - use Snell’s law and the refraction
angle from Example 3.1
– 1.47sin(90° - 19.89°) = 1.45sin(qrefraction)
– qrefraction = sin-1(1.47sin(70.11°)/1.45)
– qrefraction = 72.42°

nair = 1
ncore = 1.47
ncladding = 1.45
qincident = 30°

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 Snell’s Law (Example 3)
• Calculate the angle of refraction at the core/cladding interface
for the new data below
• Solution: 1sin(10°) = 1.45sin(qrefraction(core))
– qrefraction(core) = sin-1(sin(10°)/1.45) = 6.88°
– 1.47sin(90°-6.88°) = 1.45sin(qrefraction(cladding))
– qrefraction(cladding) = sin-1(1.47sin(83.12°)/1.45)
= sin-1(1.0065) = can’t do
– light does not refract into
cladding, it reflects back
into the core (TIR)
nair = 1
ncore = 1.47
ncladding = 1.45
qincident = 10°

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 Critical Angle Calculation
• The angle of incidence that produces an angle of
refraction of 90° is the critical angle
– n1sin(qc) = n2sin(90°)
– n1sin(qc) = n2 n1 = Refractive index of the core
n2 = Refractive index of the cladding
– qc = sin (n2 /n1)
-1

• Light at incident angles

greater than the critical
angle will reflect back
into the core

Critical Angle, qc

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NA Derivation

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 Acceptance Angle and NA
• The angle of light
entering a fiber which
follows the critical angle
is called the acceptance
angle, a
n1 = Refractive index of the core
a= sin-1[(n12-n22)1/2] n2 = Refractive index of the cladding

• Numerical Aperature Acceptance Angle, a

(NA)
describes the light-
gathering ability of a
fiber Critical Angle, qc

NA = sina
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 Numerical Aperture
• The Numerical Aperture is the sine of the largest angle contained within
the cone of acceptance.
• NA is related to a number of important fiber characteristics.
– It is a measure of the ability of the fiber to gather light at
the input end.
– The higher the NA the tighter (smaller radius) we can
have bends in the fiber before loss of light becomes a
problem.
– The higher the NA the more modes we have, Rays can
bounce at greater angles and therefore there are more of
them. This means that the higher the NA the greater will
be the dispersion of this fiber (in the case of MM fiber).
– Thus higher the NA of SM fiber the higher will be the
attenuation of the fiber
Typical NA for single-mode fiber is 0.1. For multimode, NA is between 0.2 and 0.3
(usually closer to 0.2).

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 Acceptance Cone
• There is an imaginary cone of acceptance with an
angle a
• The light that enters the fiber at angles within the
acceptance cone are guided down the fiber core

Acceptance Angle, a

Acceptance Cone

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 Acceptance Cone

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 Formula Summary
• Index of Refraction c
n
v

Snell’s Law
n1 sin q1  n2 sin q 2

 n2 
q c  sin  
1

Critical Angle  n1 

Acceptance Angle

a  sin 1 n12  n22 
Numerical Aperture NA  sin a  n12  n22

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 Practice Problems

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 Practice Problems (1)

• What happens to the light which

approaches the fiber outside of the cone of
acceptance? The angle of incidence is 30o
as in Fig.1 (calculate the angle of
refraction at the air/core interface, qr/
critical angle, qc/ incident angle at the
core/cladding interface, qi/) does the TIR
will occur?
 Practice Problems (2)

Calculate:
angle of refraction at the
air/core interface, qr
critical angle , qc core/cladding interface
incident angle at the
core/cladding interface , qi
Will this light ray propagate
down the fiber?
air/core interface

nair = 1
ncore = 1.46
Answers:
ncladding = 1.43 qr = 8.2°
qincident = 12° qc = 78.4°
qi = 81.8°
light will propagate

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