Photonic techniques for use on the Atacama Large Millimeter Array

Author

Payne, John ; Shillue, Bill ; Vaccari, Andrea

Author_Institution

Nat. Radio Astron. Obs., Tucson, AZ, USA

fYear

1999

fDate

1999

Firstpage

105

Abstract

Progress on a photonic local oscillator that may be suitable for the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) is described. The proposed system is based on the coherent heterodyne of 1550 nm infrared signals generated at a central location and then distributed over optical fiber to each antenna. The length of each fiber is held constant by a servo system which uses an optical interferometer to measure the fiber path length. The difference between the two laser frequencies is converted at the receivers to a radio frequency (RF) signal by a high-speed photomixer

Keywords

laser beam applications; microwave photonics; optical fibre communication; optical frequency conversion; radiotelescopes; radiowave interferometers; Atacama Large Millimeter Array; RF signal; coherent heterodyne; high-speed photomixer; infrared signals; laser frequencies difference; optical fiber distribution; optical interferometer; photonic LO; photonic local oscillator; photonic techniques; servo system; High speed optical techniques; Local oscillators; Optical fibers; Optical interferometry; Optical mixing; Optical receivers; Radio frequency; Radio interferometry; Servomechanisms; Signal generators;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave Photonics, 1999. MWP '99. International Topical Meeting on

Conference_Location

Melbourne, Vic.

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5558-X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MWP.1999.819662

Filename

819662