Balanced phase-locked loops for optical homodyne receivers: Performance analysis, design considerations, and laser linewidth requirements

Balanced phase-locked loops for optical homodyne receivers are investigated. When a balanced loop is employed in a communications system, a part of the transmitter power must be used for unmodulated residual carrier transmission. This leads to a power penalty. In addition, the performance of the balanced loops is affected by the laser phase noise, by the shot noise, and by the crosstalk between the data-detection- and phase-lock-branches of the receiver. The impact of these interferences is minimized if the loop bandwidthBis optimized. The value of Boptand the corresponding optimum loop performance are evaluated in this paper. Further, the maximum permissible laser linewidthdeltanuis evaluated and found to be5.9 times 10^{-6}times Rb, where Rb(bit/s) is the system bit rate. This number corresponds toBER = 10^{-10}and power penalty of 1 dB (0.5 dB due to residual carrier transmission, and 0.5 dB due to imperfect carrier phase recovery). For comparison, decision-driven phase-locked loops require onlydeltanu = 3.1 times 10^{-4}. R_{b}. Thus, balanced loops impose more stringent requirements on the laser linewidth than decision-driven loops, but have the advantage of simpler implementation. An important additional advantage of balanced loops is their capability to suppress the excess intensity noise of semiconductor lasers.