Sensors & Transducers



Vol. 255, Issue 1, January 2022, pp. 24-34





High Performance InAs/InP Quantum Dash Frequency Comb Laser for High Capacity RoF Wireless Networks



1, * Youxin Mao, 1, 2 Khan Zeb, 1 Zhengou Lu, 1 Jiaren Liu, 1 Guocheng Liu,
1 Philip J. Poole, 1 Mohamed Rahim, 1 Grzegorz Pakulski, 1 Pedro Barrios,
1 Weihong Jiang and 2 John Zhang



1 Advanced Elect. and Photonics Research Centre, National Research Council Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada

2 iPhotonics Labs, Dept. of Elect. and Computer Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada

* Tel.: + 613-993-7331

E-mail: youxin.mao@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca



Received: 23 November 2021 /Accepted: 30 December 2021 /Published:​31 January 2022





Abstract: We demonstrate a high performance C-band semiconductor quantum dash (QD) mode-locked laser based optical frequency comb (OFC) with buried heterostructure (BH). Theory of timing jitter is presented including characterization methods from both the 1st harmonic RF power spectral density and optical phase noise. Experimental results of relative intensity noise (RIN), phase noise, and timing jitter are compared from QD mode-locked optical frequency comb having BH structure to that with conventional surface ridge structure in the same repetition rate of 25 GHz. It is demonstrated that the laser with BH structure exhibits significantly reduced RIN, phase noise, and timing jitter compared to the surface ridge structure. The performance of BH QD OFC is also evaluated in broadband optical heterodyne based radio-over-fiber fronthaul wireless links at 5G New Radio of around 25 GHz with a total bit rate of 16-Gb/s.


Keywords: Semiconductor quantum dot or dash mode-locked laser, Optical frequency comb, Buried hetero-structure, Phase noise, Timing jitter, Radio-over-fiber, 5G new radio.

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