Polarization instability and performance of free-space optical links based on vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

Author

Kuksenkov, D.V. ; Temkin, H. ; Swirhun, S.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO, USA

Volume

8

Issue

5

fYear

1996

fDate

5/1/1996 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

703

Lastpage

705

Abstract

The consequences of polarization instability on the performance of polarization sensitive free-space optical links based on vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers are evaluated experimentally. We show that the signal-to-noise ratio decreases to unacceptably low values when the bit rate of the link exceeds 300 Mb/s, resulting in bit error rate floors. The amplitude noise resulting from the polarization instability is modeled in terms of a cyclostationary random process. It is shown that for any bit rate the signal-to-noise ratio can be accurately estimated from the measurement of the relative intensity noise spectrum.

Keywords

error statistics; laser cavity resonators; laser noise; laser stability; light polarisation; optical links; optical transmitters; random noise; surface emitting lasers; 300 Mbit/s; VCSEL; amplitude noise; bit error rate floors; bit rate; cyclostationary random process; performance; polarization instability; polarization sensitive free-space optical links; relative intensity noise spectrum; signal-to-noise ratio; vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers; Bit error rate; Bit rate; Laser modes; Laser noise; Noise level; Optical fiber communication; Optical polarization; Signal to noise ratio; Surface emitting lasers; Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/68.491601

Filename

491601