Opto-electronic oscillator incorporating carrier suppression noise reduction technique

Abstract

The noise performance of the optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) has been improved by about 20 dB. This improvement is obtained with a novel implementation of the carrier suppression technique. This performance is significant because the oscillator is free-running; and since the noise in an OEO is independent of the oscillation frequency, the same performance may also be obtained at higher frequency. We have recently developed a novel carrier suppression technique to reduce the 1/f phase noise of the oscillator even further. The technique is based on the use of a long fiber delay.