Optical Phase Locking techniques: an overview and a novel method based on Single Side Sub-Carrier modulation

A short overview on Optical Phase locking techniques and a detailed description of the Phase Locking technique based on Sub-Carriers modulation is presented. Furthermore, a novel Single Side Sub-Carrierbased Optical Phase Locked Loop (SS-SC-OPLL), with off the shelf optical components, is also presented and experimentally demonstrated. Our new method, based on continuous wave semiconductor lasers and optical single side sub-carrier modulation using QPSK LiNbO3 modulator, allows a practical implementation with better performance with respect to the previously proposed OPLL circuits, and permits an easy use in real time WDM signal coherent demodulation.