Transmission characteristics of 24.5 Gb/s atmospheric laser communication based on optical frequency comb

Abstract

Through cascading Mach–Zehnder intensity modulator (MZIM) and phase modulator (PM), an optical frequency comb (OFC) with 7 flat comb teeth is produced. The frequency interval of the OFC is 25 GHz and the flatness is less than 1.5 dB. The 7 channels of the OFC are used as the carrier source of the one-to-many free-space optical (FSO) communication system, and the atmospheric turbulence simulation pool is used to simulate the turbulence intensity in the real atmosphere to verify its feasibility for FSO communication. In the experiment, the bit error rate (BER) and eye diagram are measured under the back-to-back (BTB) conditions, and the temperature difference of atmospheric turbulence simulation pool are 80 °C, 150 °C and 220 °C. Each channel of the system can stably transmit the on–off keying (OOK) signal of 3.5 Gb/s, and the 7 channels can stably transmit the OOK signal of 24.5 Gb/s. Thereby, the OFC can be used in place of multiple lasers or laser arrays as a carrier source for a one-to-many FSO communication system.