Advances in VCSEL for satellite applications

Mid-wave and long-wave infrared transmitters and detectors for optical satellite communications—a review

“…Several studies have successfully demonstrated the potential for VCSELs to succeed in intersatellite applications, although even taking into account the possibility for arrays, it may be difficult to obtain Watt-level powers that would be desirable for satellite-to-ground links. NASA has also developed a patent-pending system for using VCSELs for highly accurate fine satellite pointing with nanosecond response times [76][77][78][79].…”

“…This means that adoption of 1550 nm as a satellite-to-ground standard would involve other mitigation techniques, such as utilizing multiple ground stations to limit having all ground stations affected by negative weather events. The main factor in almost all cases limiting performance of the link is weather, and otherwise 1550 nm lasers would be an excellent candidate for optical SatCom [76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90].…”

Low-Timing-Jitter and Low-Phase-Noise Microwave Signal Generation Using a VCSEL-Based Optoelectronic Oscillator

“…The VCSEL-based optoelectronic oscillator (VBO) was introduced in 2006 (Varón et al, 2006), and its architecture includes a directly modulated VCSEL. This type of laser, known for its low power consumption and low cost, is suitable for embedded aerospace applications (Rissons et al, 2012). In addition to the advantages of VCSEL lasers, the implementation of VBOs is less expensive, smaller, and requires a smaller operating current than other implementations.…”

“…As a contribution to this field, we present the first timing-jitter analysis for a VCSEL-based optoelectronic oscillator. The VBO implementation of this work uses the latest generation of VCSELs in the O and C-bands with reduced relative intensity noise (RIN) in comparison to VCSELs used in previous publications (Varón et al, 2006;Rissons et al, 2012;Koizumi et al, 2009).…”