International Topical Meeting on Microwave Photonics

10-12 September, 2003

Effects of Directly Modulated Laser Chirp on the Performances of

Radio Over Fiber Systems
Antonella FANIUOLO, Giovanni TARTARINI. Paolo BASS1
Dept. of Electronics, Computer Science and Systems University of Bologna (Italy)

Pier FACCIN', Andrea CASINI

TEKMAR Sistemi Srl - Faenza (Italy)
Via De Crescenzi.40 I4801 8 Faenza ITALY
*phone:+39 0546 697124, fax: +39 0546 682768, e-mail: pier.faccin@tekmar.it

Abstract
This paper presents a study of the performances of
Radio over Fiber ( R o n systems in presence of
fiber dispersion and rpu"ous FM ("chirp") effects
of directly modulated DFB lasers. Experimental
results are successfully compared with theoretical
OneS.

Introduction
The continuously increasing diffusion of mobile
telephone systems has to face problems related to
the distribution of the radio signal in those placer
where. due to particular conditions, the
propagation of the electromagnetic field is
difficult. and there problems are even expected to
increase in the future UMTS systems. Possible
examples are the coverage of railway and
motorway tunnels, or the coverage of the interior
of high buildings.
However, coverage problems can arise also with
good radio visibility, if a capillary coverage
distribution is required in order to face a strong
traffic request. This happens. for example. during
spon events, exhibitions or conventions where a
large number of people gather i n a geographically
very limited region. In these cases it is necessary to
realize overage of the microcell or picwell kind.
It is well known that Radio over Fiber (RoF)
technology solves all these problems in a flexible.
cost-effective and performing way. This
technology takes advantage of the very low
attenuation exhibited by the optical fiber, and is
b a r d on the analog Intensity Modulation (Rd)of
the semiconductor laser source and its
demodulation through the Direct Detection (DD)
performed by a PIN photodiode [I].
Tekmar has successfully exploited the RoF
approach since 1992, commercializing products
which present noticeable feahren in terms of
transparency and linearity of transmission. and
which find many applications in the antenna
remotization of cellular systems.

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Recently, the D-WDM technology has been

applied also in RoF systems. D-WDM is
particularly indicated in the deployment of radio
signal distribution networks in a metropolitan area.
The possibility of placing either the Base
Transmitting Stations or the UMTS Node B or
even both of them in the same site and then
branching the system in a ring configuration is in
fact particularly attractive. With a single fiber it i s
also possible to realize coverage in metropolitan
areas with low impact both on the visual and
environmental point of view. Furthermore, this
allows to maximize fiber reuse.
The baric components of a D-WDM system, like
laser sources in lhe ITU-T grid. channel filters and
optical amplifiers are now available at costs and
performances which are suitable for this panicular
application. A possible altemative 10 the use of
WO modularors is the classical scheme of direct
Intensity Modulation (IM) of the laser source. This
would increase the commercial competitiveness of
D-WDM RoF solutions.
This choice. however. presents some drawbacks.
Direct modulation of laser sources determines an
undesirable frequency mcdulation (chirping) which
is negligible for these applications in the case of
WO modulators. Chirping causes a distortion of
the detected signal in presence of a dispersive
channel, such us the optical fiber of ITU-T G.652
standard This fiber eibibilr a not negligible
dispersion value in the C-band. In particular, it has
been shown that. in an analog link with direct
detection, the spurious FM. which is present in the
laser emission. produces Second and third order
products of harmonic and intermodulation
distortion. These terms and those generated by the
nonlinear elemem of the link. typically the laser
and the photodiode. can cause unacceptable
limitations of the Spunous Free Dynamic Range
(SFDR) of the system. The preliminary evaluation
of the laser chirp effect to the overall SFDR
performances is therefore very impomant for the

10-12 September, 2003

International Topical Meeting

on M i c r o w a v e Photonics

correct design of RoF systems with direct

modulation of the laser source.
In this work. a both experimental and theoretical
investigation on this problem is presented. First. in
order to evaluate some parameten that needed to
be introduced in the theoretical model. the chirp of
three RoF optical Iransmitten, each equipped with
1 a different DFB laser source. has been measured.
Then. each transmitter has been included into an
optical link equipped with a high performance PIN
photodiode and the harmonic distonions have been
measured. Measurements have been repeated for
different fiber lengths to evaluate also the
dispersion effects. From the theoretical point of
view, a model, based an that proposed in [31. has
, been developed to calculate the h e r source chirp
i effects on the performances of the RoF systems.
I The paper is organized as follows. First. the
' characterization of the chirp for different RoF
optical transmitters and the experimental procedure
to characterize the different optical links will be
desenbed. Then, the theoretical model will be
presented and its results will be successfully
compared with the measured ones. Finally.
1 conclusions will be drawn.

I
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Experimental results
first step of our work has been the
measurement of the laser chirp. The value of this
parameter in fact must be inserted in the model
I equations.
To this purpose. we have used the self-homodyne
I technique [4]. A RaF optical transmitter based on a
DFB laser diode which emits at an optical angular
frequency q, , is periodically intensity modulated
(with index m.) by an RF sinusoidal carrier of
' angular f q u e n c y %F
for a time slot T and
unmodulated for the next identical time slot. The
direct modulation causes the appearance of the
I chitp phenomenon which is represented by an
I undesired frequency modulation. T h e maximum
I angular frequency deviation d a m is unknown.
and must be determined. The signal passes through
: a Mach-Zehnder interferometer at the end of
j which. with the aid of a delay line, it is coupled
with its version shifted by a time T and then sent to
a photodiode. In this way. a coherent homodyne
optical detection of the modulated carrier is
I performed. In particular. the PIN photodiode
I detects a baseband (BE) component of the optical
power. which, in tum, generates a photocurrent
I proponional to the term:

! The

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284

where R is the Responsivity of the PIN

photodiode and PB8(l) is the instanlaneour value
of the baseband optical power. Moreover m, =
(AaU/uhF) is the unknown frequency modulation
index due to the laser chirp. The spectrum of ( I )
includes terms at frequencies 0, % F , 2wf, 3wF,
.... whose amplitudes are functions of the terms
Jdm,), Jh).
JdmO. Jdm,). ... where J. is the
Bessel function of first kind and of order n. We
have assumed a relation of proportionality (to be
verified a posteriori) between the frequency
modulation index and the term I," = (ZC, /NIn
where 1," is the amplitude of the RF modulating
c u m n t at the RF input port of the optical
transmitter. C,. is the RF power related to I,. and
Ro = 50 R i s the input impedance of the optical
transmitter. We have then varied C," until the
various spectral lines corresponding to multiples of
wF vanished. Since the zeros of the Bessel
functions are known. multiple evaluations of the
adiabatic chirp factor k, = (Auku/l;J have been
done.
The three RaF optical transmitten have been tested
with RF input signals ranging between ermro =
1W MHx and %p _" = 2.11 G H r In all these
cases. a constant value of this parameter was found
for each of the characterized laser diodes.
confirming the correctness ofthe above mentioned
hypothesis of proportionality.
For each tested RoF optical transmitter, a
preliminary measurement of the linewidth of the
laser has been performed as well. using the selfhomodyne technique. in order to be sure that this
linewidth was small enough to be practically
negligible on the subsequent measurement results.
In evaluating kf we checked if it can be acceptable
to simply assume that the n-rh harmonic
component of the detected signal is proportional to
Jn(+
This would allow to neglect the influence of
the intensity modulated term of Q. (1). However.
as it will be shown later. we have found that this
approximation is not acceptable.
As a second step of the experimental part of the
work. measurements of the distonian of the links
have been carried out. The sketch of the
measurement apparatus is shown in Figure I .
The optical transmitters used in the chirp
evaluation experiment have been d u l a t e d by RF
sinusoidal carriers with different values of %F.
The modulated signal has been then rent to the
optical fiber. An optical variable attenuator assured
that the signal reaching the photodiode had a
constant atlenuation through the link, regardless of
the fiber length. 10 allow direct comparison of the

International Topical M e e t i n g on Microwave

Photonics

measurement results. The Optical Back Reflection

of the link was continuously monitored to
guarantee that its value were always greater rhan
35 dB. An electrical spectrum anaiyzer allowed to
determine the desired quantities of the output
signal. as its second-order dirtonion term U D , .
where C is the amplitude of the RF carrier
component at angular frequency o& and D, is the
amplitude of the terms at angular frequency 2 a F .
Before slaning the measurement of the distortion
terms an initial check on the values of the RF
parameters Si, and S,, of the link was performed
with the aid of a network analyzer. and gave
acceptable results for both parameters.

10-12 September, 2003

and Figure 3 . for the second harmonic distortion

term CID2.Figure 2 refers to a laser with kl = 106
M H d d , modulated with an RF carrier of
frequency fRF = @d(Zrr)= 460 MHz. while Figure
3 refers to a laser with k, = 225 UHdd
modulated with fEp = 930 MHz. In both cases. the
values of CID2 have been measured for C," = 0
dBm. 3 dBm and 6 dBm: the fiber lengths L were
3.2 km. 8.8 km. 10 km and 25 km.
h bath cases, the dashed C U N ~ S refer to results
obtained neglecting in Eq. ( I ) Ihe influence of the
intensity modulation term, while the continuos
ones refer 10 cases in which the modulation term is
considered.
I1 can be observed that. without the inrensity
modulation factor. theoretical and experimental
cuwes differ by about 3 dB. Agreement improves
when the modulation intensity is considered. The
difference between theoretical and measured
values decreases in fact to 0.5 dB for all the used
values of C,. and for the lengths of 8.8 km, 10 km
and 25 km. while, for L = 3.2 km. the difference
assumes a value of about 1.3 dB. We think that a
possible cause of this residual length depending
mismatch can be the presence of small nonlinear
effects both in the laser and in the PLN powercurrent characteristics. The influence of these
nonlinearitiea is negligible when the value of D, is
relatively high (as it is when L = 8.8 km, 10 km and
25 km), but it has a higher relative influence when
the contribution to D,due 10 the dispersion alone is
low (as it is when k 3 . 2 km).

Theoretical Model and Comparison with

Experimental Results
The model we exploited is based on that proposed
in [3]. The spectrum of the optical signal has been
represented as Ihe product of the Fourier Series
expansion of an Intensity Modulated (IM)term and
the erpansion of a Frequency Modulated (FM)
term The propagation in a dispersive optical fiber
has been computed in Ihe hypothesis to work far
from the zero dispersion poinl. This allowed the
terms of third order or higher to be neglected in the
Taylor expansion of the propagation constant p
The square-law detection of the photodiode was
then taken into account by computing the square
module of the propagated field. Collecting
appropriately the rems of the resulting double
series expansion. it was finally possible to compute
the amplitude of the terms corresponding 10 the
various frequencies. The harmonic distonion terms
CID. (where D. is the amplitude of the t e r m at
angular frequency " o h ) that had to be expected
for the real optical links that we wanted to measure
could then be theoretically computed for different
1," and O k , by insening in the modeling program
far each optical link the measured values of k, of
the corresponding laser. Different fiber spa1
lengths have been assumed, ranging between 3.2
km and 25 km. The value of dispersion used
(Lk16.216ps nm.' km?) corresponds to a !TU-T
G.652 fiber in the band of Channel 33
(;b=1550.9208 nm).
The k, values to be inserted in the equations are
those experimentally evaluated as descnbed in Ihe
previous section. They depend on the particular
laser diodes used in rhe system. This allowed full
theoretical computation of the distonion on the
intensity modulated simal affected bv freauencv
chirp ailer its propag&m through a dispersive
ODtleal fiber.
Resu11s of the comparison between measurements
and rheoretical predictions are reported in Figure 2

Conclusions
We have camied out an experimental and
theoretical work 10 evaluate the second order
distonion terms caused by the laser chirp in RoF
systems. The model has been tested on three
optical links using different laser sources. and
varying frequencies and powers of the modulating
signals and for different lengths of me optical
links. A very good agreement has been found
between theoretical and measured values of the
second order distonion term. We then believe that
the theoretical model CM provide a correct
estimation of the effect of the laser chirp on the
quality of the received signal after propagation in a
dispersive channel and can then be used as a useful
tooi for RoF system design using direct intensity
modulation of DFB laser diodes and direct
detection

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10-12 September, 2003

International Topical M e e t i n g

on Microwave Photonics

I
Aekaovledgrmeou
We are very grateful to Eng. Roberto &ma

of
Tekmar Sislemi Srl. who performed some of the
measurements reponed in this paper.
Pan ofthis work has been funded by the
Italian Ministry for Education, University and
Research (MIUR).

Refrrmeer
[ I ] H. AI-Raweshidy. S. Komalu, 'Radio over
Fiber Technologies' Anech House Publishers,

I 2wz.
121 'RF and Microwave Fiber-Optic Design
Guide' Application Note, Agere Systems. A p d
2001(31 George J. Meslener, 'Chromatic dispersion
induced distortion of modulated monochromatic
light employing direct detection'. E E E 1.
Quantum Electron., vol. QE-20, nolo, October
1984.
I41 D.M. Baney. W.V.Sonn, 'Measurement of a
Modulated DFB Laser Spectrum Using the Gated
Delayed Self-Homodyne Technique'. Electronics
Letters. vol. 24. n. 11, May 26, 1988, pp. 669-670.

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b m I W
Figure 2. Plot of the ratio between carrier
amplitude (C) and amplitude of the secondharmonic component (D,)at the output of the
optical link, for different values of fiber lengths.
The tested RoF optical transmitter shows a chirp
factor k, = 106 MHzhA. and is modulated with an
RF carrier at frequency fm = mJ(2n) = 460 MHz.
Each pair of curves corresponds to a different
value of input power
The graphics symbols
correspond to measured values: continuous and
dashed lines represent theoretical values,
respectively including or no$ the intensity
modulation term of Eq. (I).

e,".

RF Sa"==

C.651

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Figure 1. Block diagram of the expenmental setup

used to characterize the RoF systems.

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*WO
Figure 3. Same as Fig. 2. h this case however the
RoF optical transmitter shows a chirp factor k, =
225 MHdnlA, and is modulated with an RF canier
at frequency/, = nb/(2x) = 930 MHr.

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