Impact of the modulation depth on self-homodyne optical single sideband systems

Simulation experiments are used to assess the feasibility of optical SSB systems using self-homodyne detection. The experiments revealed that the electrical waveforms of the drive signals, required by the transmitter modulators, play a critical role on the system performance. Particularly important is the modulation depth. The present study recommends a modulation depth of 0.2 in order to obtain the best performance. The tap delay used in the discrete approximation of the Hilbert filter was also optimized, resulting in a value of 37.5 ps.