High speed fiber optic links for short-haul microwave applications

Abstract

Interest in the use of fiber-optic (FO) links to interconnect distributed microwave components and subsystems in phased-array antennas and similar applications resulted in an experimental and analytical comparison between fiber-optic and conventional coaxial interconnects. Experiments were conducted for two different fiber-optic links, namely, reactively matched and resistively matched. An approach based on the use of reactively matched optical transmit/receive modules in conjunction with an advanced fiber-optic link architecture was found to lead to a substantial improvement in the system performance of high-speed links.<>