InAs/InP quantum dash buried heterostructure mode-locked laser for high capacity fiber-wireless integrated 5G new radio fronthaul systems

Abstract

We have developed and experimentally demonstrated a highly coherent and low noise InP-based InAs quantum dash (QDash) buried heterostructure (BH) C-band passively mode-locked laser (MLL) with a pulse repetition rate of 25 GHz for fiber-wireless integrated fronthaul 5G new radio (NR) systems. The device features a broadband spectrum providing over 46 equally spaced highly coherent and low noise optical channels with an optical phase noise and integrated relative intensity noise (RIN) over a frequency range of 10 MHz to 20 GHz for each individual channel typically less than 466.5 kHz and -130 dB/Hz, respectively, and an average total output power of ∼50 mW per facet. Moreover, the device exhibits low RF phase noise with measured RF beat-note linewidth down to 3 kHz and estimated timing jitter between any two adjacent channels of 5.5 fs. By using this QDash BH MLL device, we have successfully demonstrated broadband optical heterodyne based radio-over-fiber (RoF) fronthaul wireless links at 5G NR in the underutilized spectrum of around 25 GHz with a total bit rate of 16-Gb/s. The device performance is experimentally evaluated in an end-to-end fiber-wireless system in real-time in terms of error vector magnitude (EVM) and bit error rate (BER) by generating, transmitting and detecting 4-Gbaud 16-QAM RF signals over 0.5-m to 2-m free-space indoor wireless channel through a total length of 25.22 km standard single mode fiber (SSMF) with EVM and BER under 8.4% and 2.9 × 10 −5 , respectively. The intrinsic characteristics of the device in conjunction with its system transmission performance indicate that QDash BH MLLs can be readily used in fiber-wireless integrated systems of 5G and beyond wireless communication networks.