Demultiplexing using an arrayed-waveguide grating for frequency-interleaved DWDM millimeter-wave radio-on-fiber systems

The frequency-interleaved dense- wavelength-division-multiplexing (DWDM) millimeter-wave (mm-wave) radio-on-fiber is an indispensable technique to improve the optical spectrum efficiency. We propose possible configurations of multiplexing and demultiplexing (DEMUX) schemes using an arrayed-waveguide grating (AWG) with two input and N output waveguides (N: total channel number). In this paper, we focus on the DEMUX scheme and experimentally demonstrate the DEMUX scheme using a commercially available AWG. In the experiment, 25-GHz-separated two-channel optical double sideband signals modulated by a 60-GHz millimeter-wave carrying a 156-Mb/s data are optically multiplexed by the frequency interleaving. The power penalty after DEMUX, which was due to interchannel interference, was less than 0.5 dB. We also made a transmission experiment over 25-km standard single-mode fiber (SMF). No noticeable power penalty in the received data due to chromatic dispersion of the transmission fiber was observed. This is because only the carrier and a sideband are detected in the proposed DEMUX scheme.