Abstract

Optical-fiber technology offers many advantages to the communication and radar industries, including high bandwidth and low loss. Single-mode fiber has a bandwidth-distance product greater than that of coaxial transmission lines. Applications of millimeter-wave transmission include processing of hundreds of antenna elements in phased arrays for radar and communication systems, antenna remoting, delay lines, and free-space intersatellite communications. Laser diodes have been used as transmitters at carrier frequencies as high as 16 GHz, and optical fiber has served as an excellent replacement for microwave and waveguide transmission lines.^1,2 However, applications to millimeter-wave systems have not been possible because the largest direct modulation bandwidth reported to date in highspeed laser diodes is only 28 GHz.³

© 1993 Optical Society of America