Optical & RF Communications

Highly secure and reliable defense communication systems

Specialized high bit rate optical communication systems need a high level of re-configurability and reliability and will be required to offer operation in harsh environments and tolerance to power-grid failures. To propose such flexibility, chromatic dispersion management is critical to these systems in order to compensate for pulse broadening of light to maintain high signal-to-noise detection at the receiver end. Requirements on dispersion compensation devices include tunability, “set and forget” (latchable) feature, channel-plan independent (colorless) operation and high dispersion tuning ranges (up to ±2000 ps/nm). In addition to deployment of its standard tunable dispersion compensation products TeraXion has developed a colorless Latchable Dispersion Compensator to suit stringent performance and reliability requirements of secure communication systems.  The ClearSpectrum product line offers a broad range of dispersion compensation solutions for applications requiring large tuning range, colorless and low power operation.

RF over fiber communications

Deployments of plateform-based RF over fiber communication systems benefit from the light weight and low-loss characteristics of optical fibers and are capable of simultaneously transmitting a variety of RF bands.  Other advantages include the fact that optical fiber is unaffected by electro-magnetic induction, and systems can be extremely compact.  When a laser is used as local oscillator at the receivers of RF over fiber systems it must have very low frequency noise and high frequency stability to yield a large signal-to-noise ratio.  TeraXion’s narrow-linewidth lasers qualify perfectly as reliable high-performance local oscillators.  On the other hand, sub-100 MHz filtering in the optical domain of carriers and sidebands is a challenge that must be overcome in these systems.  TeraXion’s ultra-narrow phase-shifted FBG filters with demonstrated bandwidth in the tens of MHz can overcome this challenge.

Generation and Distribution of Pure RF Tones

A Master/Slave laser combination allows the generation and distribution of extremely pure RF signals for astronomical observations and RF over optical communications. In addition to its EM immunity an low loss, carrying RF over an optical fiber is beneficial because it maintains the original RF signal in a near-pristine state over great distances while simultaneously transmitting a variety of optical and RF bands. Leading applications for RF fiber optics include:

• Antenna remoting
• Local oscillator distribution
• On-board communications

TeraXion has tailored its laser frequency control platform in a Master/Slave laser optical phase locked loop configuration that allows generation and distribution of high purity RF oscillator.