Applications of optoelectronic oscillators for high speed clock recovery and RF signal discrimination

The use of photonic systems to address the demands of high speed signal processing has grown swiftly in the past few years. One current photonic technology that has been extensively researched for analog and digital applications is the Optoelectronic Oscillator, often referred to as an OEO [1]. The OEO was first introduced by Yao and Maleki [2, 3] in 1996 as a source for high frequency, low phase noise signals. Since the OEO provides high performance with the use of commercial parts that are inexpensive, multiple demonstrations have been made both improving and extending the initial design. In fact the OEO has been used for far more than just signal generation. A couple of applications that have received a large amount of attention are clock recovery and signal discrimination. This paper will review the multiple advancements in OEOs for these applications.