Using Tunable Dispersion-Compensated Modules to Overcome the Power Penalty of a Millimeter-Wave Opto-Electronic Oscillator Signal that is Distributed via a Passive Optical Network for 5G Networks

The opto-electronic oscillator (OEO), used as a high-frequency oscillator to produce millimeter-wave (mm-W) signals with a low phase noise, is a suitable candidate for fifth-generation (5G) networks in the mm-W range. Since a mm-W OEO is too expensive for every 5G base-station, another option is to employ the OEO at the central-office to feed the base-stations via a passive optical network (PON) infrastructure. The lengths of the PON branches introduce a large power penalty to the transmitted mm-W OEO signal due to the chromatic dispersion of the optical fiber. In this paper the idea of upgrading the PON branches with tunable dispersion-compensated modules to have power-penalty-free transmission is proposed. By overcoming the power-penalty problem in the mm-W range, the integrated optical dispersion-compensated modules are used to minimize the influence of the dispersion in the standard single-mode optical fiber used in the PON.