Effect of VCSEL Characteristics on Ultra-High Speed Sigma-Delta-Over-Fiber Communication Links
Journal article, 2019

State-of-the-art high-speed multi-mode vertical-cavity surface-emitting-lasers (VCSELs) have a 3-dB analog bandwidth of ∼25 GHz and can operate up to 55 Gbps error-free, without need of equalization electronics. This makes them strong candidates as optical sources for ultra-high speed sigma-delta-over-fiber (SDoF) communication links. This paper examines the effects of VCSEL characteristics on a 32-Gbps SDoF communication link with a 50 m, OM4, multimode optical fiber. Three high-speed, 850-nm-wavelength VCSELs with oxide aperture sizes of 8.3, 6.6, and 4.6 μm were tested. The effects of different modulation voltage amplitudes and bias currents were also investigated. The link performance and VCSEL power consumption were used as figures-of-merits. By avoiding sub-laser threshold modulation for the VCSEL, each of three VCSELs could provide similar link performance. We show that, compared to conventional datacom links, eased bit-error-rate requirements enabled by bi-level nature of sigma-delta modulation makes it possible to use significantly lower VCSEL bias currents. This in turn enables a reduced VCSEL power consumption (50% lower heat-to-bit ratio) and a potential longer VCSEL lifespan. For a SDoF modulated, 160-Mbaud, QAM64 signal centered at 12 GHz an error vector magnitude of -28 dB was achieved with the VCSEL having oxide aperture size of 4.6 μm operating at only 2 mA bias current and 0.25 V modulation amplitude. This results in a heat-to-bit ratio of only 0.1 mW/Gb/s (or equivalently 0.1 pJ/b), and a current density in the VCSEL that is less than 10 kA/cm2.

optical interconnects

microwave photonics

sigma-delta-over-fiber

vertical-cavity surface-emiting-laser

high-speed modulation

Datacom

sigma-delta modulation

Author

Ibrahim Can Sezgin

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Microwave Electronics

Johan Gustavsson

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Photonics

Tamas Lengyel

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Photonics

Thomas Eriksson

Chalmers, Electrical Engineering, Communication, Antennas and Optical Networks

Zhongxia Simon He

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Microwave Electronics

Christian Fager

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Microwave Electronics

Journal of Lightwave Technology

0733-8724 (ISSN) 1558-2213 (eISSN)

Vol. 37 9 2109-2119 8637797

All-Digital Radio-over-Fiber: A New Radio Transmitter Architecture for Future Wireless Applications

Swedish Research Council (VR) (2015-04000), 2016-01-01 -- 2019-12-31.

Subject Categories

Energy Engineering

Communication Systems

Other Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering

DOI

10.1109/JLT.2019.2898270

More information

Latest update

2/24/2020