The performance of the high speed InGaAsP ridge waveguide lasers and the GaAlAs single-mode lasers operating as a micromixer have been investigated by using a circuit model derived from the iterative method and device rate equations. The laser mixer has many advantages over the conventional microwave mixer, including: high conversion gain, wide dynamic range, low noise figure and high local oscillator/intermediate frequency (LO/IF) isolation. The analytic results also indicate that the heterodyne microwave fiber optic link using a laser mixer provides the advantages of system simplicity, cost-effectiveness and improved system signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) than the conventional microwave fiber optic links. System SNR of two fiber optic links were measured: a 12 GHz link with 70 MHz IF has a SNR of better than 120 dB/Hz and a 26.5 GHz up-converted link has a SNR of 100 dB/Hz, without laser diode RF impedance matching. Other system applications of the laser mixer are also presented.

Date Published: 1 June 1990
PDF: 13 pages
Proc. SPIE 1217, Optoelectronic Signal Processing for Phased-Array Antennas II, (1 June 1990); doi: 10.1117/12.18143

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 1217:
Optoelectronic Signal Processing for Phased-Array Antennas II
Brian M. Hendrickson; Gerhard A. Koepf, Editor(s)