Circuit-level simulation of transistor lasers and its application to modelling of microwave photonic links

Abstract

Equivalent circuit models of a transistor laser are used to investigate the suitability of this relatively new device for analog microwave photonic links. The three-terminal nature of the device enables transistor-based circuit design techniques to be applied to optoelectronic transmitter design. To this end, we investigate the application of balanced microwave amplifier topologies in order to enable low-noise links to be realized with reduced intermodulation distortion and improved RF impedance matching compared to conventional microwave photonic links.