Stimulated Rayleigh scattering and amplitude-to-phase conversion as a source of length-dependent phase noise in OEOs

Optical fiber-length-dependent flicker phase noise has been identified as a major limit to the reduction of phase noise in optoelectronic oscillators (OEOs). We demonstrate that in our system the largest contributor to low-frequency flicker noise is from Rayleigh scattering through the fiber combined with amplitude-to-phase conversion in the RF amplifiers.