The transmission performance degradation of the optical millimeter-wave signals by fiber chromatic dispersion

The influence of the fiber chromatic dispersion on double sideband (DSB), optical carrier suppression (OCS), and single sideband (SSB) optical mm-wave signals is investigated based on the Taylor expansion of the propagation constant and is verified by simulation. According to our theoretical results, the fading effect suppresses the signal power of the DSB optical mm-wave periodically in a cosine-like pattern, and it can be described by the zero-order Taylor expansion of the propagation constant. For the optical mm-wave with the signal modulated on two or more tones, the bit pulses of the mm-wave signal are distorted by the dispersion-inducing bit walk-off effect between tones, which is expressed by the first-order Taylor expansion of the propagation constant. Moreover, as the signal rate and the transmission distance are increased further, higher-order Taylor expansion of the propagation constant still degrades the optical mm-wave signal even if both the fading effect and the bit walk-off effect are eliminated completely. The distortion of the signal pulses of SSB optical mm-wave is derived based on the second-order Taylor expansion of the propagation constant. This degradation is verified by the simulation with the eye diagram evolution of the SSB optical mm-wave signal.