Hybrid intensity-modulation-to-phase-remodulation optical wavelength reuse transport system

A hybrid intensity-modulation (IM)-to-phase-remodulation optical wavelength reuse transport system is proposed and demonstrated experimentally. Based on the transport system, an optical carrier can be intensity-modulated with an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) signal and then phase-remodulated with a radio frequency (RF) signal prior to communicating its destination through a span of single mode fiber. The OFDM signal at the receiver end can be directly detected using a photodetector (PD), and the phase-modulated RF signal can be detected by another PD after being converted back to intensity-modulation format by a semiconductor laser. In this study, the working window of the semiconductor laser-composed phase-modulation-format-to-IM-format converter is not fixed. The converter can be flexibly adjusted to align with the wavelength of the employed optical carrier. Experimental results prove that both OFDM and RF signals can be clearly detected with an error-free transmission. Evident interference is not found between both signals at the receiver end.