Millimetre-Wave Radio-Over-Fiber Systems Using Mode-Locked Lasers

The Radio-over-Fiber (RoF) links play an important role in systems where mm-wave (60GHz) signals need to be distributed over many 100's of meters. In 60GHz RoF systems, cost of modulating a laser is a problem. A potentially low cost solution is the use of mm-wave pulse repetition frequencies mode-locked lasers (MLLs). In this book, a novel concept of injection-locking these MLL to implement mm-wave phase shift is introduced. Both magnitude and phase of the modulation response are measured using VNA and a "plateau" is observed in magnitude response which corresponds to the locking range of the system. The MLL phase shifter operation makes them an ideal candidate for mm-wave RoF phased array antenna and advanced antenna beam steering systems. The wireless injection locking of MLLs is also presented which uses modular integration of a MLL and a planar antenna. Then, a novel Photonic Active Integrated Antenna approach is introduced to further improve the integration, where a MLL is hybridly integrated with a planar antenna to perform wireless injection-locking. Finally, a novel self oscillating mixer behavior of the MLL is studied under both homodyne and heterodyne configurations.

Autorentext

He received M.Sc degree (2005) in communication engineering from University of Plymouth, U.K and PhD degree (2010) for work on mode locked lasers and their use in millimeter-wave radio-over-fiber systems from University of Bristol, U.K. Currently, he is an assistant professor at National University of Sciences and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan.