Design of a ground-based optical receiver for the lunar laser communications demonstration

Author

Grein, Matthew E. ; Kerman, Andrew J. ; Dauler, Eric A. ; Shatrovoy, Oleg ; Molnar, Richard J. ; Rosenberg, Danna ; Yoon, Jung ; DeVoe, Catherine E. ; Murphy, Daniel V. ; Robinson, Bryan S. ; Boroson, Don M.

Author_Institution

Lincoln Lab., Massachusetts Inst. of Technol., Lexington, MA, USA

fYear

2011

fDate

11-13 May 2011

Firstpage

78

Lastpage

82

Abstract

In this paper we present a design for a photon-counting optical receiver-based on superconducting NbN nanowire detector arrays-that will be employed in the ground terminal for the NASA Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration. The ground receiver is designed with four, 40 cm apertures, each coupled to a novel multi-mode polarization-maintaining fiber. The receiver is designed to receive a variable-rate pulse-position-modulated signal with a maximum data rate of 622 Mb/s.

Keywords

nanowires; optical fibre communication; optical receivers; photon counting; space communication links; superconducting devices; NASA Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration; bit rate 622 Mbit/s; ground-based optical receiver; multimode polarization-maintaining fiber; photon-counting optical receiver; size 40 cm; superconducting NbN nanowire detector arrays; variable-rate pulse-position-modulated signal; Detectors; Optical fiber communication; Optical fiber dispersion; Optical fiber polarization; Photonics; Receivers; multi-mode optical fiber; optical communications; photon-counting detector; pulse-position modulation; superconducting nanowire single-photon detector;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Space Optical Systems and Applications (ICSOS), 2011 International Conference on

Conference_Location

Santa Monica, CA

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-9686-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICSOS.2011.5783715

Filename

5783715