Optical Front-Haul Communications Links based on Reflective Semiconductor Optical Amplifier Transmitters for Next Generation Radio-over-Fiber 5/6G Mobile Systems

Colourless optical transmitters provide compact and economic designs to develop optical front-haul network technologies for future mobile and general wireless networks.

Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers (SOAs) have great potential in realising efficient colourless transmitters as they can simultaneously provide amplification and modulation capabilities.

This project will exploit Reflective SOA (RSOA) based colourless transmitter designs to integrate efficient and cost-effective Radio over Fiber (RoF) systems.

The RSOAs feasibility to integrate developed technologies like Wavelength Division Multiplexing-Passive Optical Network (WDM-PON) for next generation access networks will be addressed.

The project will carry out RSOA/system modelling and experimental evaluation of several designs focusing on multi Gigabit/per second data transmission through the use of advanced modulation formats in particular as 16-level Pulse Amplitude Modulation (16-PAM).

The designed systems will employ and compare two seeding schemes to optically feed RSOA; external light seeding with coherent light source and broadband seeding.

Transmission system performance will be evaluated particularly in terms of received signal constellation properties and Bit Error Rate (BER).

The impact of RSOAs in such systems will be studied in detail to decide the optimal RSOA operating parameters such as its bias and modulation currents and input optical power.

The work will address challenges that impact SOA performance in WDM-PONs, such as the influence of SOA non-linearities and noise. The proposed research will aid the design of novel RoF systems that can support future 5/6G infrastructure.

The project will be implemented in a leading multi-disciplinary research group and the researcher will bring modelling and advanced experimental hands-on experiences that will facilitate research in the group