Low-cost 60-GHz radio-over-fiber architecture compatible with wavelength-division-multiplexing passive optical networks by employing directly modulated laser and frequency quadruple techniques

We demonstrate a novel low-cost radio-over-fiber network architecture with one directly modulated laser and one intensity modulator. By employing an orthogonal frequency division mutiplexing modulation format and frequency quadruple scheme, the bandwidth requirement of the devices and the cost of the system is reduced. Experimental results show that the power penalty for the downlink data after transmission over 20-km single mode optical fiber (SMF)-28 is smaller than 1.3 dB, while for the up-link data, the power penalty after transmission over 20-km SMF-28 is smaller than 0.3 dB. (C) 2010 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. [DOI: 10.1117/1.3454378]