PIC (Photonic Integrated Circuit) based high throughput optical communication system for space application

Kurzfassung

Intersatellite links are becoming a rapidly growing application area for optical communications. They have a great potential to complement the existing terrestrial networks in order to provide global broadband access. While densely populated areas are well served through optical fiber connections, satellite systems can be used to cover rural or more remote areas. Optical satellite communications offers not only high bandwidth, but also improvements in cost, size, weight and power (C-SWaP) offered by photonic integration. In this thesis, the topic of scaling free-space optical (FSO) links to 100 Gbps per wavelength channel and beyond is investigated. A quantitative study is performed to select the optimal modulation formats in terms of receiver sensitivity, transceiver complexity, noise susceptibility and spectral efficiency to achieve at least 100 Gbps data rate. The outcome of this study is then used to prepare optical circuit models to analyse and compare the link performance under different system noise conditions, based on realistic system assumptions for a geostationary earth orbit (GEO) satellite to optical ground station transmission. The Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC) layouts for the analysed optical system models are designed and their chip size requirements are studied. The potential for scaling the selected system up to four channels using dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) is investigated and the impact of some non-linear effects on system performance is analysed.