Theory for optical heterodyne narrow-deviation FSK receivers with delay demodulation

A theoretical model is presented that includes the effects of laser phase noise, receiver noise, imperfect modulation, IF bandwidth, and postdetection filtering. Detailed numerical results for 140-Mb/s and 400-Mb/s systems are presented, showing excellent agreement with independent published experimental results and strongly supporting the theoretical analysis. It is found that an IF linewidth of less than 0.25% of bit rate is required to avoid degrading the receiver sensitivity by more than 1 dB in a system with a strong local oscillator and modulation index of 0.7. A larger modulation index allows a larger linewidth to be accommodated. If the demodulation is not optimal, a narrower linewidth is necessary