Scheme for a High-Capacity 60 GHz Radio-Over-Fiber Transmission System

We investigate a scheme for a 60 GHz radio-over-fiber transmission system by using a dual-electrical Mach-Zehnder modulator (De-MZM) and an optical interleaver. Such a system includes the generation of 60 GHz millimeter-wave (mm-wave) signals and the delivery of a remote local oscillator (LO). In the scheme, two lasers with frequency deviation are used as sources, and a De-MZM is biased at the minimum transmission point to realize optical carrier suppression modulation. After fiber transmission, an optical interleaver is used to separate subcarriers. If one laser is modulated with baseband data and the other is not, 60 GHz mm-wave signals with and without modulating data can be generated by using photodiodes, one of which can be used in mm-wave communication and the other can be used as a remote LO. In this work, we theoretically analyze the bit-error-rate performance and power degradation due to the lasers' phase noise. Our scheme uses only a commercially used De-MZM and optical interleaver; therefore, no sensitive equipment and complicated structure is needed, which guarantees the system has steady performance and a cost-effective architecture.