Frequency domain phase noise analysis of dual injection-locked optoelectronic oscillators

Dual injection-locked optoelectronic oscillators (DIL-OEOs) have been introduced as a means to achieve very low-noise microwave oscillations while avoiding the large spurious peaks that occur in the phase noise of the conventional single-loop OEOs. In these systems, two OEOs are inter-injection locked to each other. The OEO with the longer optical fiber delay line is called the master OEO, and the other is called the slave OEO. Here, a frequency domain approach for simulating the phase noise spectrum of each of the OEOs in a DIL-OEO system and based on the conversion matrix approach is presented. The validity of the new approach is verified by comparing its results with previously published data in the literature. In the new approach, first, in each of the master or slave OEOs, the power spectral densities (PSDs) of two white and 1/f noise sources are optimized such that the resulting simulated phase noise of any of the master or slave OEOs in the free-running state matches the measured phase noise of that OEO. After that, the proposed approach is able to simulate the phase noise PSD of both OEOs at the injection-locked state. Because of the short run-time requirements, especially compared to previously proposed time domain approaches, the new approach is suitable for optimizing the power injection ratios (PIRs), and potentially other circuit parameters, in order to achieve good performance regarding the phase noise in each of the OEOs. Through various numerical simulations, the optimum PIRs for achieving good phase noise performance are presented and discussed; they are in agreement with the previously published results. This further verifies the applicability of the new approach. Moreover, some other interesting results regarding the spur levels are also presented. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America