Effects of chromatic dispersion on microwave and millimetre wave carrier transmission in optical fibres

Abstract

A new formalism for the analysis of optical (phase) noise in fibre-optic communication links is presented. The formalism is applied to an amplitude modulated millimetre-wave (or microwave) link with chromatic dispersion. A realistic link model is described and rigorously solved. In general, the power spectrum of the output signal consists of a ‘comb’ of spectral components with centre separation equal to the modulation frequency. Each spectral component contains a smooth ‘noise’ curve and a narrow spike which represents a modulated field component (carrier). With the new method it is possible to compute each spectral component and, consequently, the full power spectrum. From the power spectrum one can compute quantities relevant to the link design, in particular the carrier-to-noise ratio. Several graphs are presented, showing the power spectrum and the carrier-to-noise ratio for different values of the modulation frequency, link dispersion and modulation index. Several conclusions regarding the millimetre-wave fibre-optic link are dis-cussed.