Photonic vector signal generation employing a novel optical direct-detection in-phase/quadrature-phase upconversion.

This work demonstrates the feasibility of the generation of an RF direct-detection vector signal using optical in-phase/quadrature-phase (I/Q) upconversion. The advantage of the proposed transmitter is that no electrical mixer is needed to generate the RF signal. Therefore, I/Q data of RF signals are processed at baseband at the transmitter, which is independent of the carrier frequency of the generated RF signal. A 10 Gb/s 16 quadrature amplitude modulation signal is experimentally demonstrated. Following transmission over a 50 km single-mode fiber, the power penalty is negligible. Moreover, I/Q imbalance of the proposed transmitter is studied and compensated by digital signal processing, which is both numerically and experimentally verified.

Study on dispersion-induced phase noise in an optical OFDM radio-over-fiber system at 60-GHz band.

While coherency between an RF-tone and OFDM signals in RoF systems at 60 GHz is de-correlated by fiber dispersion, both phase rotation term (PRT) on each subcarrier and inter-carrier interference (ICI) between subcarriers are induced at a receiver. We analytically calculate the powers of PRT and ICI under different parameters, such as subcarrier number, modulation format, laser linewidth and transmission distance. Moreover, dispersion-induced ICI is shown to be non-Gaussian distributed by its kurtosis, and its distribution depends on system parameters. Therefore, using only the power of ICI cannot predict accurate bit error rate (BER) and corresponding power penalty. We propose to use t-distribution to fit the distribution of ICI, and it can be used to compute BER precisely.

A Full duplex radio-over-fiber linkwith Multi-level OFDM signal via a single-electrode MZM and wavelength reuse with aRSOA.

This work demonstrates the feasibility of a full duplex Radio-over-fiber (RoF) link employing multi-level OFDM signal via a single-electrode Mach-Zehnder modulator and wavelength reuse for uplink utilizing a reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA). A High spectral efficiency 5-Gb/s 16-QAM OFDM signal with frequency multiplication for the RoF downstream link is demonstrated, and negligible penalty is achieved after 25-km standard single mode fiber transmission. Furthermore, wavelength reuse for a 1.25-Gb/s OOK signal via a RSOA for the upstream link is also demonstrated with a receiver penalty of less than 0.5 dB following 25-km SMF transmission.

Full duplex 60-GHz RoF link employing tandem single sideband modulation scheme and high spectral efficiency modulation format.

This study proposes a full duplex 60-GHz band radio-over-fiber (RoF) link using a modified tandem single sideband (TSSB) modulation scheme with frequency doubling. Based on the modified TSSB modulation scheme, no dispersion induced fading is observed; high spectral efficiency vector signal can be utilized; and wavelength reuse can also be achieved. Both single carrier 8-QAM and QPSK-OFDM signals for down-link transmissions are experimentally demonstrated. After transmission of 50-km SSMF, no significant receiver power penalties are observed. Wavelength reuses with 1.25-Gb/s OOK using a reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA) for up-link transmission are also demonstrated. After transmission of 50-km SSMF, no significant receiver power penalties are also observed.

A continuously tunable and filterless optical millimeter-wave generation via frequency octupling.

This work proposes a cost-effective, continuously tunable and filterless optical millimeter-wave (MMW) signal generation employing frequency octupling. Optical MMW signals with 30-dB undesired sideband suppression ratios can be obtained. Since no optical filtering is required, the proposed system can be readily implemented in wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) systems. V-band 60-GHz and W-band 80-GHz optical MMW signals are experimentally demonstrated. Because of the high undesired sideband suppression ratio, 60-GHz waveform with 50% duty cycle is observed. The single-sideband (SSB) phase noise of the generated 60-GHz signal is -73 dBc/Hz at 10 kHz. The proposed system is a viable solution for the future ultra-high frequency MMW applications up to 320 GHz using the external modulator with a limited bandwidth of 40 GHz.

Photonic vector signal generation at microwave/millimeter-wave bands employing an optical frequency quadrupling scheme.

To the best of our knowledge, a novel photonic architecture to generate vector signals at microwave/millimeter-wave bands employing an optical frequency quadrupling technique based on an external dual-parallel modulator is proposed for the first time. A 312.5 MSym/s quadruple phase-shift keying signal at 25 GHz is experimentally demonstrated using properly precoding driving signal at 6.25 GHz, and optical power penalty is negligible following 50 km single-mode fiber transmission.

RF phase shifter using a distributed feedback laser in microwave transport systems.

This work experimentally demonstrates the efficacy of a radio-frequency phase shifter using a distributed feedback laser in a microwave transport system. Phase shifts of about 101 degrees are obtained at 8.75 GHz. The proposed phase shifter can amplify microwave signals and thereby improve transmission performance. Additionally, a similar single sideband modulation can be generated by the phase shifter. Experimental results indicate that the proposed phase shifter can be used in future long-distance microwave transport systems and all optical inverters.

WDM up-conversion employing frequency quadrupling in optical modulator.

This work presents an optical up-conversion system with frequency quadrupling for wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) communication systems using a dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder modulator without optical filtering. Four-channel 1.25-Gb/s wired fiber-to-the-x (FTTx) and wireless radio-over-fiber (RoF) signals are generated and transmitted simultaneously. Moreover, the decline in receiver sensitivities due to Mach-Zehnder modulator bias drifts is also investigated. Receiver power penalties of the 20-GHz up-converted WDM signals and baseband (BB) FTTx signals are less than 1 dB when bias deviation voltage is less the 20% of the half-wave voltage. After transmission over a 50-km SSMF, the receiver power penalties of both the BB and 20-GHz RF OOK signals are less than 1 dB. Notably, 60-GHz optical up-conversion can be achieved using 15-GHz radio frequency (RF) components and equipment.

Optical direct-detection OFDM signal generation for radio-over-fiber link using frequency doubling scheme with carrier suppression.

This investigation demonstrates the generation of OFDM-RoF signal using frequency doubling technique for the first time, to the author's best knowledge. The 4-Gb/s OFDM signal using 16-QAM format modulated on each subcarrier at a center frequency of 19GHz is experimentally demonstrated. Benchmarked against the OOK format, the 16-QAM OFDM format has the higher spectral efficiency with a sensitivity penalty of less than 2.6 dB. After transmission over 50-km single mode fiber, the power penalties of RF OOK and OFDM signals are less than 0.5 dB.

Convergence of phase fluctuation induced by intrachannel four-wave mixing in differential phase-shift keying transmission systems via phase fluctuation averaging.

This work investigates the effect of phase fluctuation averaging on phase fluctuation induced by intrachannel four-wave mixing (IFWM) in highly dispersed differential phase-shift keying transmission systems. Through repeatedly averaging the phase fluctuations of adjacent pulses, a simple analytical model and numerical simulation revealed that the IFWM-induced differential phase fluctuation is suppressed and convergent, even after an ultralong transmission. The influence of averaging the phase fluctuations on the bit error rate is also evaluated by the semianalytical method.

Convergence of phase noise in DPSK transmission systems by novel phase noise averagers.

This investigation proposes a novel all-optical phase noise averager to reduce residual phase noise in the differential phase-shift keying (DPSK) transmission system with phase-preserving amplitude regenerators. The proposed phase noise averager is based on a phase-sensitive amplifier but does not require an extra phase-locking optical pump beam. It can increase the correlation between the phase noises of neighboring bits and greatly reduce the differential phase noise in the transmission system. Independently of the cascaded spans, analytical analysis demonstrates that, in the DPSK system with repeated averagers, the total differential phase noise will be less than that before the first averager. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulation are carried out and confirm the significant improvement of DPSK signals using the proposed novel phase noise averagers.

Study of differential cross-polarization modulation in a semiconductor optical amplifier.

Differential cross-polarization modulation (DXPoM) wavelength conversion using a semiconductor optical amplifier has been proposed to outperform substantially traditional cross-polarization modulation (XPoM). This work presents analytical small-signal models of XPoM and DXPoM. The transfer function of DXPoM is used to elucidate the significant improvement in bandwidth and the relationships among the modulation bandwidth, the delay, the operating points and other device parameters of a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA).