Abstract
State-of-the-art high-speed multi-mode vertical-cavity surface-emitting-lasers (VCSELs) have a 3-dB analog bandwidth of
$\sim$
25 GHz and can operate up to 55 Gbps error-free, without need of equalization electronics. This makes them strong candidates as optical sources for ultra-high speed sigma-delta-over-fiber (SDoF) communication links. This paper examines the effects of VCSEL characteristics on a 32-Gbps SDoF communication link with a 50 m, OM4, multimode optical fiber. Three high-speed, 850-nm-wavelength VCSELs with oxide aperture sizes of 8.3, 6.6, and 4.6
$\mu$
m were tested. The effects of different modulation voltage amplitudes and bias currents were also investigated. The link performance and VCSEL power consumption were used as figures-of-merits. By avoiding sub-laser threshold modulation for the VCSEL, each of three VCSELs could provide similar link performance. We show that, compared to conventional datacom links, eased bit-error-rate requirements enabled by bi-level nature of sigma-delta modulation makes it possible to use significantly lower VCSEL bias currents. This in turn enables a reduced VCSEL power consumption (50% lower heat-to-bit ratio) and a potential longer VCSEL lifespan. For a SDoF modulated, 160-Mbaud, QAM64 signal centered at 12 GHz an error vector magnitude of
$-$
28 dB was achieved with the VCSEL having oxide aperture size of 4.6
$\mu$
m operating at only 2 mA bias current and 0.25 V modulation amplitude. This results in a heat-to-bit ratio of only 0.1 mW/Gb/s (or equivalently 0.1 pJ/b), and a current density in the VCSEL that is less than 10 kA/cm
$^2$
.
© 2019 IEEE
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