Damping factor influence on linewidth requirements for optical PSK coherent detection systems

Spectral linewidth requirements for optical phase-shift-keying (PSK) coherent detection systems are found to depend on the phase-locked loop (PLL) parameters. Until now, the damping factor of the PLL has been assumed to be 1/√2 when deriving the required spectral linewidth of a light source, because it is at this value that an electrical PLL offers near optimum performance in many cases. By increasing the PLL damping factor above 1/√2, it is shown that there exists a maximum value of the required linewidth that achieves a received optical power penalty of 1 dB at a bit error rate of 10^-10. The required beat linewidths so obtained are 50% larger than previously reported results (which assume a damping factor of 1/√2). As for PLL frequency acquisition performance, it is shown that raising the camping factor above 1/√2 does not seriously affect the hold-in limit or the pull-in limit. It is also shown that the normalized loop gain that optimizes PLL performance is roughly one half the normalized loop gain at which the PLL oscillation commences