Phase Locking Semiconductor Lasers for Optical Generation of Millimeter Wave Sources Greater the 60GHz

US Army planners emphasize implementation of a total protection umbrella for soldiers in any future tactical scenarios by providing them with full communication and EW capability to effectively defeat a variety of threats, such as smart munitions and artillery fuzes. A digitized battlefield information is hence provided to the information processing centers to plan a coordinated tactical solutions. Secure communication requirements and small size of a phase array antenna requires a Comm on the Move at millimeter wave frequencies. Distribution of modulated carrier and control signals is very challenging at MMW and hence photonics is proposed as a viable technique to alleviate the problems associated with loss, interference, size and weight of copper based transmission networks. A system architecture pursued by US Army CECOM is based on the generation of stabilized carrier signal using heterodyning of two phase locked laser sources. The frequency stability of the generated carrier signal and efficient modulation and demodulation of the data signals are among system critical issues. Analytical modeling of close-in to carrier phase noise of the generated MMW frequency reference using heterodyning of OPLL and OILPLL are the goal of Phase I. The novel OILPLL is designed to improve the close-in to carrier phase noise of the standard OPLL.