Convergence of millimeter-wave and photonic interconnect systems for very-high-throughput digital communication applications

In the past, radio-frequency signals were commonly used for low-speed wireless electronic systems, and optical signals were used for multi-gigabit wired communication systems. However, as the emergence of new millimeter-wave technology introduces multi-gigabit transmission over a wireless radio-frequency channel, the borderline between radio-frequency and optical systems becomes blurred. As a result, there come ample opportunities to design and develop next-generation broadband systems to combine the advantages of these two technologies to overcome inherent limitations of various broadband end-to-end interconnect systems in signal generation, recovery, synchronization, and so on. For the transmission distances of a few centimeters to thousands of kilometers, the convergence of radio-frequency electronics and optics to build radio-over-fiber systems ushers in a new era of research for the upcoming very-high-throughput broadband services. Radio-over-fiber systems are believed to be the most promising solution to the backhaul transmission of the millimeter-wave wireless access networks, especially for the license-free, very-high-throughput 60-GHz band. Adopting radio-over-fiber systems in access or in-building networks can greatly extend the 60-GHz signal reach by using ultra-low loss optical fibers. However, such high frequency is difficult to generate in a straightforward way. In this dissertation, the novel techniques of homodyne and heterodyne optical-carrier suppressions for radio-over-fiber systems are investigated and various system architectures are designed to overcome these limitations of 60-GHz wireless access networks, bringing the popularization of multi-gigabit wireless networks to become closer to the reality. In addition to the advantages for the access networks, extremely high spectral efficiency, which is the most important parameter for long-haul networks, can be achieved by radio-over-fiber signal generation. As a result, the transmission performance of spectrally efficient radio-over-fiber signaling, including orthogonal frequency division multiplexing and orthogonal wavelength division multiplexing, is broadly and deeply investigated. On the other hand, radio-over-fiber is also used for the frequency synchronization that can resolve the performance limitation of wireless interconnect systems. A novel wireless interconnects assisted by radio-over-fiber subsystems is proposed in this dissertation. In conclusion, multiple advantageous facets of radio-over-fiber systems can be found in various levels of end-to-end interconnect systems. The rapid development of radio-over-fiber systems will quickly change the conventional appearance of modern communications.PhDCommittee Chair: Gee-Kung Chang; Committee Member: Bernard Kippelen; Committee Member: Shyh-Chiang Shen; Committee Member: Thomas K. Gaylord; Committee Member: Umakishore Ramachandra

Nonlinear Mixing in Optical Multicarrier Systems

Although optical fiber has a vast spectral bandwidth, efficient use of this bandwidth is still important in order to meet the ever increased capacity demand of optical networks. In addition to wavelength division multiplexing, it is possible to partition multiple low-rate subcarriers into each high speed wavelength channel. Multicarrier systems not only ensure efficient use of optical and electrical components, but also tolerate transmission impairments. The purpose of this research is to understand the impact of mixing among subcarriers in Radio-Over-Fiber (RoF) and high speed optical transmission systems, and experimentally demonstrate techniques to minimize this impact. We also analyze impact of clipping and quantization on multicarrier signals and compare bandwidth efficiency of two popular multiplexing techniques, namely, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and Nyquist modulation. For an OFDM-RoF system, we present a novel technique that minimizes the RF domain signal-signal beat interference (SSBI), relaxes the phase noise limit on the RF carrier, realizes the full potential of optical heterodyne-based RF carrier generation, and increases the performance-to-cost ratio of RoF systems. We demonstrate a RoF network that shares the same RF carrier for both downlink and uplink, avoiding the need of an additional RF oscillator in the customer unit. For multi-carrier optical transmission, we first experimentally compare performance degradations of coherent optical OFDM and single-carrier Nyquist pulse modulated systems in a nonlinear environment. We then experimentally evaluate SSBI compensation techniques in the presence of semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) induced nonlinearities for a multicarrier optical system with direct detection. We show that SSBI contamination can be significantly reduced from the data signal when the carrier-to-signal power ratio is sufficiently low