Abstract

The optoelectronic-oscillator (OEO) was first demonstrated by Yao and Maleki.¹ As shown in Fig. 1, it is a conventional photonic link dosed on itself, setting up a hybrid cavity which supports oscillations where the open loop gain spectrum exceeds unity. Its primary advantage is the potential for generating high spectra] purity oscillations. Analysis of the loop’s effect on the phase noise, assuming either white-noise¹ or colored- noise² sources in the loop, shows that a mode’s PSD near its center has a dependence of τ⁻², where τ is the loop delay. Using low-loss fiber, τ can be very large, resulting in a high Q.

© 2001 Optical Society of America