Optical millimeter-wave generation and transmission technologies for mobile communications, an overview

The success of future broadband mobile cellular communication systems rely to a great extent on reliable, low-cost components and technological principles. Especially in pico-cell scenarios needing many base stations the radio-over fiber technology is required for transmitting and generating millimeter-wave signals. Several approaches at frequencies up to 60 GHz are reviewed. This paper briefly reviews systems with intensity modulation and direct detection but the main focus is on systems based on heterodyne techniques using single or multiple optical sources in the control station for generating a single millimeter-wave carrier or a complete optical frequency division multiplex for the conversion to the millimeter-wave domain