Superlinear growth of Rayleigh scattering-induced intensity noise in single-mode fibers
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Cahill, James P., Olukayode Okusaga, Weimin Zhou, Curtis R. Menyuk, and Gary M. Carter. “Superlinear Growth of Rayleigh Scattering-Induced Intensity Noise in Single-Mode Fibers.” Optics Express 23, no. 5 (March 9, 2015): 6400–6407. https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.23.006400.
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This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.
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Abstract
Rayleigh scattering generates intensity noise close to an optical carrier that propagates in a single-mode optical fiber. This noise degrades the performance of optoelectronic oscillators and RF-photonic links. When using a broad linewidth laser, we previously found that the intensity noise power scales linearly with optical power and fiber length, which is consistent with guided entropy mode Rayleigh scattering (GEMRS), a third order nonlinear scattering process, in the spontaneous limit. In this work, we show that this behavior changes significantly with the use of a narrow linewidth laser. Using a narrow linewidth laser, we measured the bandwidth of the intensity noise plateau to be 10 kHz. We found that the scattered noise power scales superlinearly with fiber length up to lengths of 10 km in the frequency range of 500 Hz to 10 kHz, while it scales linearly in the frequency range of 10 Hz to 100 Hz. These results suggest that the Rayleigh-scattering-induced intensity noise cannot be explained by third-order nonlinear scattering in the spontaneous limit, as previously hypothesized.