Optics Communications 448 (2019) 111–115

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Optics Communications
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/optcom

60 Gbit/s coherent wavelength-division multiplexing free-space optical

modulating retro-reflector in a turbulence-tunable atmospheric cell
Xianglian Feng a , Hexin Jiang a , Zhihang Wu a , Tianshu Wang b , Huilin Jiang b , Shiming Gao a,c ,∗
a Centre for Optical and Electromagnetic Research, State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instrumentation, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
b
National and Local Joint Engineering Research Center of Space Optoelectronics Technology, Changchun University of Science and
Technology, Changchun 130022, China
c
Ningbo Research Institute, Zhejiang University, Ningbo 315100, China

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords:
Free-space optical communications
Quadrature phase-shift keying
Wavelength-division multiplexing
Laser beam transmission
A novel high-speed coherent modulating retro-reflector (MRR) is presented and experimentally demonstrated
for free-space optical (FSO) communications by using an in-phase quadrature (IQ) modulator with quadrature
phase-shift keying (QPSK) signals to break the conventional speed limitation. The transmission performance
is tested in a turbulence-tunable atmospheric cell. The received sensitivity is measured to be <14.7 dB
PPB, and the power penalty is <2.0 dB for 20 Gbit/s single-channel QPSK signal at the BER of 0.01 when
the temperature difference is <250 ◦ C. Moreover, this MRR scheme is compatible to wavelength-division
multiplexing (WDM) technology, and a 60 Gbit/s WDM MRR is demonstrated using three channels with only
about 0.6 dB degradation.

1. Introduction
Free-space optical (FSO) communications have great potentials in
high speed and large capacity due to its ultra-high carrier frequency and
large bandwidth. Modulating retro-reflectors (MRRs) have shown their
advantages for FSO communications with strict payload and power
limits such as between mobile (aircrafts, ships and satellites, etc.) and
stationary terminals since the optical source system can be avoided
on mobile terminals [1,2]. An MRR combines an optical retro-reflector
with a modulator, which can modulate and reflect the incoming optical
carrier directly back to the transceiver. MRRs have been demonstrated
through different ways such as frustrated total internal reflectors [3],
liquid crystal modulators [4], and multiple quantum well devices [5].
However, they are all discrete and of large volumes, and the modulation
speeds are relatively low due to their modulation principles. In our
previous work, a high-speed MRR method based on a semiconduc-
tor optical amplifier (SOA) has been presented, but its modulation
speed is still limited by the response speed of the SOA [6]. Recently,
we further presented an MRR structure based on an electro-optical
modulator and test its performance by using on-off keying (OOK)
and differential binary-phase shift keying (DPSK) signals [7]. In this
method, the modulated speed can be up to the speed of the used
modulator, tens of Gbit/s. To increase the system capacity, advanced
m-ary modulation formats with high spectral efficiency such as quadra-
ture phase-shift keying (QPSK) and quadrature amplitude modulation
(QAM) can be considered [8]. Advanced modulation formats have been
used for FSO transmissions [9–13]. Moreover, multiple multiplexing
technologies such as wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM), time-
division multiplexing (TDM), polarization-division multiplexing (PDM),
and orbital-angular momentum (OAM) multiplexing have also be used
to improve the transmission capacity [9–12]. High-speed (gigabit/s and
even terabit/s) FSO links have been implemented with a short distance
in laboratory [9–11]. Moreover, QPSK coherent FSO transmission links
employed with WDM technology with the bit rate of beyond 100 Gbit/s
have also been realized over a distance of about 1 km by using
acquisition, tracking and pointing (ATP) systems in real atmospheric
environment [12]. The transmission capacity of MRRs is also expected
to be greatly increased by introducing advanced modulation formats
and multiplexing technologies.
The FSO communication performance is greatly affected by the
atmospheric turbulence, which has been analyzed using various mod-
els [14]. When the optical carrier propagates through the atmospheric
channel, the atmospheric turbulence will cause the light power fluc-
tuation and fading. In laboratories, the atmospheric turbulence can be
experimentally demonstrated using an atmospheric cell by introducing
a temperature difference between its top and bottom. The turbulence
will become stronger with the temperature difference increasing. In
this paper, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel high-
speed coherent MRR based on electro-optical IQ modulator. This MRR

∗ Corresponding author at: Centre for Optical and Electromagnetic Research, State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instrumentation, Zhejiang University,
Hangzhou 310058, China.
E-mail address: gaosm@zju.edu.cn (S. Gao).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.optcom.2019.05.025
Received 30 March 2019; Received in revised form 8 May 2019; Accepted 11 May 2019
Available online 16 May 2019
0030-4018/© 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
X. Feng, H. Jiang, Z. Wu et al.
Fig. 1. Schematic configurations of (a) one of the conventional MRR and (b) our proposed IQ-modulator-based MRR.
scheme has no extra bit rate limitation except for the bandwidth of
the used modulator. Moreover, the aperture size and the field of view
can be enlarged by using the special optical antenna cooperating with
the ATP system [15]. The MRR is tested in an atmospheric cell using
20 Gbit/s QPSK signals. The measured probability-density function
(PDF) agrees with the fitting result using exponentiated Weibull (EW)
distribution. The received sensitivities are <14.7 dB photons per bit
(PPB), and the power penalties are <2.0 dB at the BER of 0.01, when
the temperature increases up to 250 ◦ C. The capacity of the MRR is
increased to 60 Gbit/s by using three WDM channels, and the power
penalties are <2.6 dB at the BER of 0.01.
2. Principle and experimental setup
Fig. 1(a) shows one of the conventional MRR configurations. The
interrogation light is modulated by the driving data sequence using
the modulator such as a semiconductor multi-quantum-well modulator.
And then, it is reflected by the retro-reflector such as a corner-cube
prism. It can adapt a wide interrogation angle, which is up to 20◦
typically for multi-quantum-well devices MRR, but the modulation
bandwidth is quite narrow [5]. Fig. 1(b) shows the configuration of our
proposed IQ-modulator-based MRR. The interrogation light is collected
using an optical antenna. The aperture size of the optical antenna can
be designed according to the requirement. Moreover, the field of view
can be enlarged to 360◦ by using ATP systems [15]. Although the
optical system is sensitive to alignment, the enlargement of the field
of view can be realized using the ATP system inside the special optical
antenna. The ATP system contains coarse steering gimbal assembly,
fine pointing control and alignment assembly, coarse and fine tracking
detector assembly, and acquisition and tracking electronics assembly,
which can make the optical antenna always towards the interrogation
light regardless of its incoming angle and keep the alignment stable.
In our proposed scheme, the interrogation light is coupled into an
optical circulator and injected into the IQ modulator, where it is
modulated by the driving data and reflected backward to the optical
circulator. After coupling from the fiber to the optical antenna, the
retro-reflected light is transmitted back to the transceiver from the MRR
via free space. Compared with the conventional MRR, our proposed IQ-
modulator-based MRR can support ultra-wide bandwidth and very high
modulation bit rate, which is up to the level of tens of GHz.
Fig. 2 shows the MRR structure for QPSK signals and the FSO
transmission link in an atmospheric cell. At terminal A, the optical
carrier (TL) provided by a tunable laser (Tektronix OM2210, ∼100 kHz
linewidth) with a wavelength of 1550.0 nm is transmitted to free
space via circulator 1 and collimator 1 (Thorlabs F240FC-1550, with
a divergence angle of 0.073◦ ). It propagates through a 1.5 m-long
atmospheric cell and injected into the MRR at terminal B. Here, the
MRR structure consists of a collimator (collimator 2), a circulator
(circulator 2), an erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) together with
a filter (BPF1), and an electro-optical IQ modulator, whose structure
is shown in the dashed box in Fig. 2. The optical carrier is injected
into the MRR from collimator 2 (Thorlabs N-BK7-LA1116-C, with a
focal length of 10.0 mm and a back focal length of 8.3 mm) and
coupled into the fiber, amplified by the EDFA, filtered by BPF1 (with
a 0.8 nm bandwidth), and modulated by QPSK sequences generated by
112
Optics Communications 448 (2019) 111–115
215 pseudo-random bit sequence (PRBS) from an arbitrary waveform
generator (AWG, Keysight M8195A) via the IQ modulator. And then,
the modulated optical signal is retro-reflected backward to the atmo-
spheric cell via circulator 2 once more. After the propagation in the
atmospheric cell, the QPSK signal is filtered and demodulated using a
coherent demodulator at terminal A, and a variable optical attenuator
(VOA) is used to tune the optical power of the received QPSK signal
for performance test. In the MRR structure, the collimators serve as the
optical antennas of the system, and the EDFA at terminal B can be saved
if there are some efficient ways to promote the coupling efficiency
between free space and fiber.
The optical carrier will suffer from the propagation loss in the FSO
link. The downlink optical power before collimator 1 at terminal A
(point A) is measured to be 11 dBm, and it is attenuated to about
−1 dBm after collimator 2 at terminal B (point B). The attenuation
of the downlink transmission is about 12 dB, which is mainly caused
by the atmospheric propagation loss and the coupling loss between
free-space and the collimators. In the MRR structure, it is amplified
and filtered by BPF1, the power is about 11 dBm before modulation.
After modulation (point C) the signal power is measured to be about
1 dBm. When the modulated signal is reflected backward to terminal
A (point D), the signal power is about −12 dBm. The coupling and
insertion losses of circulator 1 and circulator 2 in the uplink attenuation
measurement are both about 1 dB, and the attenuation of the uplink is
about 11 dB, which is a little different from the downlink.
3. Experimental results
Due to the influence of the atmospheric turbulence, the optical
carrier powers keep fluctuating. The burst optical powers after a round-
trip propagation are measured with a duration time of 200 μs. The
sampling rate is fixed at 50 GS/s and the sampling length is 10 million.
Fig. 3 shows the measured PDFs of the acquisition powers at various
temperature differences of 100, 150, 200, and 250 ◦ C, respectively.
One can find that more optical powers deviate from the average as the
temperature difference increases, that is, the atmospheric turbulence
strengthens.
The influence of the atmospheric turbulence on the optical power
can be described using the scintillation index. The measured scintilla-
tion index 𝜎𝐼 2 (mea) is defined as the variance of the received power
normalized by the square of the average:
⟨ 2⟩
𝐼
𝜎𝐼2 mea = −1 (1)
⟨𝐼⟩2
where I is the received intensity, and ⟨⋅⟩ represents the expectation.
The scintillation index can also be simulated by various mod-
els [14], such as lognormal distribution for weak turbulence con-
ditions [16], negative exponential and K-distribution for strong tur-
bulence conditions [16], Gamma–Gamma and exponentiated Weibull
(EW) distribution for all turbulence regimes [17,18]. However, Gamma–
Gamma distribution has been proved valid only for a point
receiver [17], while EW distribution offers an excellent fit to re-
ceived data under all aperture averaging conditions and all turbulence
X. Feng, H. Jiang, Z. Wu et al.
Fig. 2. Experimental setup of the coherent MRR based on an electro-optical IQ modulator for QPSK signals.
Fig. 3. Measured and EW-fitted PDFs of MRR FSO propagation for 20 Gbit/s QPSK
signals with the temperature differences of (a) 100 ◦ C, (b) 150 ◦ C, (c) 200 ◦ C, and (d)
250 ◦ C, respectively.
regimes [18]. Here we fit the measured optical powers using EW dis-
tribution to get the scintillation index 𝜎𝐼 2 (EW). Using the relationship
between the scintillation index 𝜎𝐼 2 and the Rytov variance 𝜎𝑅 2 [19]:
⎡ ⎤
2 2
⎢ 0.49𝜎𝑅 0.51𝜎𝑅 ⎥ the measured and EW-fitted scintillation indexes agree well with each
𝜎𝐼2 = exp ⎢ ( +
)7∕6 ( )5∕6 ⎥ − 1
⎢ 1 + 1.11𝜎 12∕5
1 + 0.69𝜎𝑅
12∕5 ⎥
⎣ 𝑅 ⎦ between the fitted and measured scintillation indexes are all less than
the Rytov variance can be obtained from the scintillation index, which
determines the strength of the atmospheric turbulence. 𝜎𝑅 2 < 1 cor-
responds to the weak turbulence regime, 𝜎𝑅 2 > 1 corresponds to
the strong turbulence, and 𝜎𝑅 2 → ∞ corresponds to the saturation
regime [19]. The scintillation index 𝜎𝐼 2 is approximately equal to the
Rytov variance 𝜎𝑅 2 under weak turbulence.
The strength of the atmospheric turbulence is often characterized by
the refractive-index structure parameter 𝐶𝑛 2 , which can be calculated
from the Rytov variance [19]:
2
𝜎𝑅 = 1.23𝑘7∕6 C2𝑛 𝐿11∕6
where k is the wavenumber, and L is the propagation distance. The
value of the refractive-index structure parameter is generally in the
range of 10−17 to 10−12 m−2∕3 , corresponding to the weak to strong
turbulences, respectively.
The atmospheric turbulence becomes strong enough to affect the
FSO transmission when the temperature difference reaches 100 ◦ C. At
this temperature difference, by deriving the PDFs from 100 consecutive
bursts, the measured scintillation index 𝜎𝐼 2 (mea), the EW-fitted scin-
tillation index 𝜎𝐼 2 (EW), and the Rytov variance 𝜎𝑅 2 calculated from
Optics Communications 448 (2019) 111–115
Fig. 4. Measured and EW-fitted scintillation indexes and the Rytov variance as the
temperature difference of the atmospheric cell varies. The inset shows the photo of the
atmospheric cell we used.
the measured scintillation index are obtained to be 0.0062, 0.0057,
and 0.0062, respectively. While, they increase to 0.1214, 0.1162, and
0.1231 when the temperature difference increases to 250 ◦ C, the max-
imum value can be realized in the atmospheric cell we used. The
influence of the atmospheric turbulence is quantitatively studied, as
shown in Fig. 4, where the measured and EW-fitted scintillation in-
dexes and also the Rytov variance are illustrated as the temperature
difference varies. One can find that both of the scintillation index and
the Rytov variance increase with the temperature difference, which
means the atmospheric turbulence in the cell is strengthened. In Fig. 4,
(2)
other. In the temperature difference range of 100–250 ◦ C, the difference
10%. For example, their differences are only 8.1% and 4.3% at 100
and 250 ◦ C, respectively. It shows the EW distribution is accurate to
simulate the turbulence case we used. Moreover, the standard errors of
the scintillation indexes are calculated. The higher the temperature dif-
ference, the larger the standard error, and the larger of the scintillation
index fluctuation.
The Rytov variances in our experiment are all much less than 1,
which means our measurements are performed in weak atmospheric
turbulences. In this case, it is available to approximate the scintillation
index using the Rytov variance in principle. In Fig. 4, one can find that
(3) the Rytov variance 𝜎𝑅 2 is almost the same as the measured and fitted
scintillation indexes 𝜎𝐼 2 (mea) and 𝜎𝐼 2 (EW), which agrees well with the
analysis. Since the signal transmission is affected by the Rytov variance,
the equivalent propagation distance can be obtained for a certain
atmospheric condition by setting their Rytov variances to be the same.
According to Eq. (3), the Rytov variance is a parameter to describe the
overall influence of the atmospheric turbulence from weak to strong,
including both the refractive-index structure parameter 𝐶𝑛 2 and the
propagation length L. In this way, the equivalent propagation length
simulated by the atmospheric cell can be calculated. For example, the
length of the atmospheric cell is 1.5 m (see the inset photo in Fig. 4)
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X. Feng, H. Jiang, Z. Wu et al.
Fig. 5. (a) Measured BER results of the B2B and MRR FSO transmissions through the
atmospheric cell for 20 Gbit/s QPSK signals and constellation diagrams of (b1) the B2B
case and the MRR FSO transmissions with the temperature differences of (b2) 0 ◦ C,
(b3) 100 ◦ C, and (b4) 250 ◦ C.
Table 1
Received sensitivities and power penalties of 20 Gbit/s QPSK B2B and MRR FSO
transmissions at the BER of 0.01.
MRR FSO transmission
B2B
0 ◦C 100 ◦ C 250 ◦ C
Average received sensitivity (dB PPB) 12.7 12.9 14.1 14.7
Power penalty (dB) / 0.2 1.4 2.0
and the Rytov variance is 0.1231 at 250 ◦ C. For a sunny windless day,
the refractive-index structure parameter is about 1 × 10−15 m−2∕3 , and
the equivalent propagation distance reaches about 2.7 km.
The average BER performance of the MRR FSO transmission in
the atmospheric cell is measured for 20 Gbit/s QPSK signals with the
temperature differences of 0, 100, and 250 ◦ C, respectively, as shown in
Fig. 5(a). At the BER of 0.01, Table 1 shows the measured sensitivities
and power penalties for back-to-back (B2B) and MRR FSO transmissions
for 20 Gbit/s QPSK signals. The received sensitivity increases from
12.9 dB PPB to 14.7 dB PPB as the temperature difference increases
from 0 ◦ C to 250 ◦ C. All the power penalties are <2.0 dB when the tem-
perature difference is <250 ◦ C, which means the IQ-modulator-based
MRR transmission is in a high performance. The IQ-modulator-based
MRR transmission is feasible of working as the space or mobile ter-
minals in real high-speed and large-capacity FSO communications if
the pointing errors due to the misalignment between the transmitter
and the receiver in the links can be solved. The pointing errors are be
solved such as by trying to avoid the base station, platform and building
sway from wind loads, thermal expansion, and weak earthquakes so as
to keep the links stable. The constellation diagrams for B2B and MRR
FSO transmissions are also shown in Fig. 5, when the received power
before pre-EDFA are tuned to be about −41 dBm. Here, Fig. 5(b1) is
for the B2B case and Figs. 5(b2), 5(b3), and 5(b4) are for the MRR
FSO transmissions with the temperature differences of 0, 100, and
250 ◦ C, respectively. One can see that the quality of constellation
diagram degrades a little with the temperature difference increasing,
which means the stronger turbulence introduces larger distortion into
the signal.
Our proposed coherent MRR scheme is compatible to WDM technol-
ogy, which is experimentally verified by replacing the optical carrier
(TL) in Fig. 2 by three WDM channels. In this way, the MRR trans-
mission capacity is increased to 60 Gbit/s. The optical carriers (CH1,
CH2, and CH3) are provides by three continuous-wave tunable lasers
(Tektronix OM2210, EXFO FLS2800, and Agilent 81600, ∼100 kHz
linewidth) with wavelengths of 1550.0, 1550.9, and 1551.7 nm, respec-
tively. At terminal B, they are filtered together by a 5.8 nm-bandwidth
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Optics Communications 448 (2019) 111–115
Fig. 6. Measured BER results for the B2B and MRR FSO transmissions in the
atmospheric cell for 60 Gbit/s three-channel QPSK signals.
filter and modulated with 20 Gbit/s QPSK sequences. At terminal A,
they are filtered separately and imported into a coherent demodulator
for detection.
Fig. 6 shows the measured average BER performance of the three-
channel WDM MRR FSO transmissions in the atmospheric cell with the
temperature differences of 0, 100, and 250 ◦ C, respectively. One can
see that each channel has almost the same performance. At the BER of
0.01, the measured sensitivities and power penalties for B2B and three-
channel WDM MRR transmissions are shown in Table 2. The power
penalties are all <2.6 dB when the temperature difference increases
up to 250 ◦ C. There are only about 0.6 dB power penalty increased
compared to the single-channel MRR transmission in Table 1, which
exhibits the high compatibility with WDM technology. The capacity
of this coherent MRR FSO communication system can be dramatically
extended by further introducing more WDM channels. Our experiment
is performed in laboratory. If this scheme is used in real outdoor
environment, the optical misalignment will occur due to the channel
effects such as atmospheric turbulence and temperature fluctuation.
The optical paths and spot sizes will be disturbed and the communica-
tion channel will be destroyed. In this case, special terminals with ATP
systems are required to establish and keep the transmission links [12,
13]. In addition, for extreme weathers with extra-large attenuations,
the hybrid FSO and radio-frequency (RF) communication systems can
be adopted to serve the RF link as a backup of the FSO link, in order
to keep the communication unblocked [20,21].
4. Conclusion
In conclusion, a novel high-speed IQ-modulator-based coherent
MRR has been proposed and demonstrated for FSO communications
in an atmospheric cell. The measured and EW-distribution-fitted at-
mospheric turbulence influences on the optical signal agree well with
each other. The received sensitivity of the proposed MRR is less than
14.7 dB PPB and the power penalty is less than 2 dB for 20 Gbit/s
single-channel QPSK signal. The MRR capacity reaches 60 Gbit/s by
using three WDM channels. Compared to the signal-channel MRR, the
power penalty of the three-channel WDM MRR only increase about
0.6 dB when the temperature difference increases up to 250 ◦ C. The
IQ-modulator-based coherent MRR has the potential to be used in
high-speed FSO communications.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant No. 61875172) and the Zhejiang Provincial
Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. LD19F050001).
X. Feng, H. Jiang, Z. Wu et al. Optics Communications 448 (2019) 111–115

Table 2
Received sensitivities and power penalties of 60 Gbit/s B2B and MRR FSO transmissions with three WDM
channels at the BER of 0.01.
WDM-MRR FSO transmission
Channel B2B
0 ◦C 100 ◦ C 250 ◦ C
CH1 13.0 13.6 15.3
Average received sensitivity (dB PPB) CH2 12.7 12.7 13.5 14.8
CH3 12.8 14.0 14.9
CH1 0.3 0.9 2.6
Power penalty (dB) CH2 / 0.0 0.8 2.1
CH3 0.1 1.3 2.2

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