Abstract
Direct intensity modulation (IM) of a semiconductor laser is used for most fiber-optic communications experiments and demonstrations. Some of the major problems or research directions in this approach are (1) laser chirping (dispersion penalty), (2) limitations on the 0 and 1 levels caused by mode partitioning or excessive chirping (extinction ratio penalty), (3) higher-frequency operation, and (4) generation of the large high-frequency modulation currents. We propose and demonstrate an approach which at least partially solves each of these four problems. In our approach, the frequency modulation (FM) from a directly modulated semiconductor laser is converted to intensity modulation using a fiber-optic FM discriminator. This approach is more complicated than direct IM but is considerably simpler than heterodyne frequency-shift-keyed or phase-shift-keyed systems.
© 1985 Optical Society of America
PDF ArticleMore Like This
Xiaobo Xie, Jacob Khurgin, Jin Kang, and Fowsen Choa
CMI6 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO:S&I) 2002
Thomas E. Darcie, Jinye Zhang, Peter F. Driessen, and J. J. Eun
PDP38 Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) 2006
Jinye Zhang and Thomas E. Darcie
OWG1 Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) 2006