Millimeter-wave radio-over-fiber system based on heterodyned unlocked light sources and self-homodyned RF receiver

A millimeter-wave (mm-wave) radio-over-fiber (RoF) system based on unlocked heterodyned light sources and self-homodyned RF receiver is proposed and demonstrated. Since the mm-wave signal is generated through the beating of two independent optical signals at the photodetector, complexities of the generation and distribution of mm-wave signal in the optical domain are avoided. Also, as RF self-homodyning is used as the means of recovering the baseband signal, phase-noise effects due to unlocking of the light sources are avoided. Experimental results confirm that the combination of these legacy solutions can successfully avoid most of the high-speed electrooptic and RF devices both from the central station (CS) and base stations (BSs).