Measurement of the probability distribution of DFB laser phase-induced intensity noise

M. Tur*, E. L. Goldstein

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

It is experimentally demonstrated that laser phase-induced intensity noise (PIIN) distributions are in general highly non-Gaussian and in fact often bimodal, thus empirically confirming early theoretical predictions. Specifically, it is shown that when multipath optical systems are driven by sources whose linewidth Δν is small compared to the detection system's electrical bandwidth B, the amplitude distribution of the PIIN is non-Gaussian and has extremely short tails. This is true of the photocurrents generated by self-heterodyne and self-homodyne spectrum analyzers, for which B ≫ Δν is a requirement. It is also true of broadband communication links using externally modulated distributed-feedback (DFB) lasers. One consequence for such links is that when PIIN is their dominant noise sources, they can exhibit a low BER at significantly smaller SNR values than Gaussian statistics predict.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCONFERENCE ON LASERS AND ELECTRO-0PTICS
Editors Anon
PublisherPubl by IEEE
Pages438-440
Number of pages3
ISBN (Print)1557520860
StatePublished - 1989
EventSummaries of Papers Presented at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics - Baltimore, MD, USA
Duration: 24 Apr 198928 Apr 1989

Publication series

NameCONFERENCE ON LASERS AND ELECTRO-0PTICS

Conference

ConferenceSummaries of Papers Presented at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics
CityBaltimore, MD, USA
Period24/04/8928/04/89

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