An Experimental Millimeter Wave Radio over Fiber Link with Double Polarization Multiplexing

Abstract A novel approach, an optical radio over fiber link with double polarization multiplexing is presented. In the two orthogonal polarizations of the optical beam the contents of information to be transmitted are different doubling the link capacity this way . For experimental verification a millimeter wave radio over fiber link with double polarization multiplexing has been developed. To ensure low cross polarization an incoherent approach is used. A high quality signal transmission is achieved by a proper procedure providing high polarization extinction ratio. In the experimental investigations different bit rates and fiber lengths are used. A signal with 12 Gbit/s bit rate is transmitted over a 25 km long link with about 1.10 -8 bit error rate. That result is much better than the already published data measured on experimental links.