Free-Space Communications Enabled by Quantum Cascade Lasers
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2021

Future generations of wireless communication systems are expected to support orders of magnitude faster data transfer with much lower latency than the currently deployed solutions. Development of wireless transceivers of higher bandwidth, low energy consumption, and small footprint becomes challenging with radio frequency (RF) electronic technologies. Photonics-assisted technologies show many advantages in generating signals of ultrabroad bandwidth at high carrier frequencies in the millimeter-wave, terahertz, and IR bands. Among these frequency options, the mid-IR band has recently attracted great interest for future wireless communication due to its intrinsic merits of low propagation loss and high tolerance of atmospheric perturbations. A promising source for mid-IR free-space communications is the semiconductor quantum cascade laser (QCL), which can be directly modulated at a high speed and facilitates monolithic integration for compact transceivers. Herein, the research and development of QCL-based free-space communications are reviewed and a recent experimental study of multi-gigabit transmission with a directly modulated mid-IR QCL and a commercial off-the-shelf IR photodetector is reported on. Up to 4 Gb s(-1)transmission of two advanced modulation formats, namely, four-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-4) and discrete multitone (DMT) modulation, is demonstrated.

pulse amplitude modulation

semiconductor lasers

quantum-cascade lasers

discrete multitone modulation

free-space optical communication

Författare

Xiaodan Pang

Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH)

Oskars Ozolins

Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH)

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Lu Zhang

Key Laboratory of Automobile Safety Technology

Zhejiang University

Richard Schatz

Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH)

Aleksejs Udalcovs

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Xianbin Yu

Zhejiang University

Key Laboratory of Automobile Safety Technology

Gunnar Jacobsen

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Sergei Popov

Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH)

Jiajia Chen

Chalmers, Elektroteknik, Kommunikation, Antenner och Optiska Nätverk

Sebastian Lourdudoss

Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH)

Physica Status Solidi (A) Applications and Materials Science

1862-6300 (ISSN) 1862-6319 (eISSN)

Vol. 218 3 2000407

Ämneskategorier

Telekommunikation

Kommunikationssystem

Annan elektroteknik och elektronik

DOI

10.1002/pssa.202000407

Mer information

Senast uppdaterat

2021-03-23