Abstract

Fibre supported millimeter-wave communication (FSMWC) is attracting considerable attention in the literature [l,2,3]. The generation of millimeter-wave in such communication systems is based on the mixing of two optical carriers on a PIN photodiode. The frequency difference of the two optical carriers should be the required millimeter-wave frequency. The two optical carriers can be produced by using two lasers or by using only one laser and a Mach-Zehnder (MZ) modulator which is modulated by a sinusoidal wave at half of the required millimeter-wave frequency [4,5]. Since the fibre length for FSMWC systems can be several tens of kilometers and the powers of the optical carriers can approach tens of milliwatts, stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) may have great effects on system performance[6,7,8]. Numerical results have been published in [9] based on steady-state analysis (SSA), however, for systems operating at a low bit rate such as 2Mbit/s, the total signal bits travelling inside the whole length of the optical fibre may not be large enough to validate SSA. For such a case the study of the dynamics of SBS [10] can provide more information about the potential effects of SBS on the system performance. In this paper we have analyzed the effects of SBS on FSMWC system by studying the dynamics of SBS. Results are shown for SBS power distribution and received signal eye opening. For comparison results from SSA are also shown. The analysis of the dynamics of SBS not only provides the time-averaged values but also approximated probability density functions of the SBS wave and the received signal therefore should provide more useful insight for system designers to understand and to deal with the SBS effects on FSWMC systems.

© 1996 Optical Society of America