Wideband FSK Optical Fiber Communication Experiment

Abstract

An experimental demonstration of a wideband directdetection frequency-shift keyed (FSK) optical fiber communication system is reported. The center wavelength is 827 nm with an excursion of 3 nm. Pseudorandom data is transmitted at 10 Mbit/s using a laser diode transmitter and avalanche photodiode receiver. The decrease in required minimum optical power for a given level of performance was shown to be 3 dB over a comparable amplitude-shift keyed (ASK) system on a peak power basis. A number of advantages of FSK that can lead to more than a 3 dB improvement in practical systems are discussed.