Optically fed microwave system using laser diodes with enhanced modulation bandwidth

Abstract

The authors present the idea of using a laser diode with enhanced modulation characteristics to generate microwave optical signals for radio-over-fibre systems. By employing strong external light injection into a laser diode, the bandwidth improvement is shown experimentally, and by using a simulation package, we then demonstrate how the bandwidth improvement greatly enhances the overall performance of an optically fed microwave system based on direct modulation of a laser diode.