Analysis and design of a DPSK optical heterodyne receiver in the presence of laser phase noise and frequency detuning

This paper is concerned with the analysis and design of an improved differential heterodyne optical receiver for differentially-encoded binary PSK (briefly, DPSK) signals in a coherent lightwave communication system. In the first part of the paper, we discuss the relevant design criteria to be employed when dealing with asynchronous heterodyne receivers for ASK, FSK or DPSK optical signals. In particular, we introduce a convenient definition of the signal-to-noise ratio at the data detector input to be assumed as the system performance measure when the non-negligible linewidth of the transmit/receive laser sources are to be taken into account. Following this design approach, we show that by properly modifying the traditional delay-and-multiply DPSK receiver, i. e. by allowing the delay to be a fraction of the symbol interval, we can considerably reduce the performance degradation caused by laser phase noise. We show thus that the superior power-efficiency of DPSK can be traded in favour of a decreased sensitivity to phase noise through a proper choice of the differential detector delay. In this respect, our results reveal that DPSK may still be competitive with other modulation formats even with non-negligible linewidth sources. In the last part of the paper, the behaviour of the optimized DPSK, ASK and large-deviation FSK data demodulators in the presence of a quasistationary frequency detuning of the local laser is also discussed under the same set of conditions as in the previous analysis. The results can be employed to derive accurate design requirements for the AFC loop of the receiver.