Long distance repeaterless optical fiber communications systems are currently used to transmit most internet and telephone information worldwide. The growth of photonic telecommunications technology has produced systems with very high bit-rate per fiber, but this still falls short of its potential capacity. Currently systems that are able to transmit even higher bit-rates are being developed utilizing dense wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) to maximally utilize the bandwidth potential of optical fibers. One of the most important factors that limits the bit-rate achievable in a such a WDM optical communications system is the cross-talk between channels caused by pulse collisions. In this thesis a consistent mathematical theory is used to analyze the frequency and timing shifts caused collisions between two WDM channels. This theory is applied to the systems currently most promising for next-generation photonic telecommunications; the dispersion managed (DM) soliton and 'quasi-linear' systems. Self-contained formulae are obtained which accurately predict the timing shifts suffered in these systems with a wide range of parameters. These formulae require an order of magnitude less computational time that direct numerical simulations. Several mathematical techniques are introduced to obtain computationally efficient formulae for complete and incomplete collisions in both systems. For complete collisions we use the Poisson sum transform to change the calculation to a sum in the Fourier domain. For incomplete collisions we use asymptotic integration to obtain approximate formulae. For quasi-linear systems we simplify the Laplace method even further to obtain elementary formulae. We show that using a combination of these methods the timing shift for incomplete and complete collisions in a wide range of system configurations can be obtained in comparatively small computational times. We find that for systems with small DM map strength the timing shift from widely separated channels is significant. For quasi-linear systems with large DM map strength this is negligable and the timing shift decreases with the square of the channel frequency separation. We also find the timing shift from closely spaced channels is higher for quasi-linear systems than for DM soliton systems operating at the same average dispersion.

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The recent advance in Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology has been largely embraced by the communication industry, which views this technology as an effective and economical alternative to the design of Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). The primary reasons for switching to FPGAs are lower development and non-recurring engineering costs, the flexibility to design to a preliminary standard and adapt the design as the standard evolves, as well as the option of performing software updates in the field.<p> A sector with strong interest in FPGAs is the coaxial cable TV/Internet distribution industry. The creation of soft preliminary standards by the standards organization governing the industry has been the main catalyst for the massive adoption of FPGAs by small to medium size companies, which see this technology as an opportunity to compete in this open market.<p> Both the circuit speed and the economy of FPGA technology depend upon using algorithms that map efficiently into its fabric. Often it is prudent to sacrifice performance to improve either clock speed or economy when developing with FPGAs. The purpose of this research is to both revise and devise synchronization algorithms / structures for cable digital receivers that are to be implemented in FPGA. <p> The main communication scheme used by the coaxial cable distribution industry is digital Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM). The problem of synchronizing to the QAM signal in the receiver is not a new topic and several synchronization-related circuits, which were devised with ASICs implementation in mind, can be found in the open literature. Of interest in this thesis is the non-data-aided digital timing synchronizer that was proposed by D'Andrea to recover timing with no knowledge of the transmitted data. Accurate timing estimation was achieved by reshaping the received signal with a prefilter prior to estimating the timing. <p> A problem with D'Andrea's synchronizer is that the prefilter for reshaping the signal is a relatively long Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter, whose implementation requires a large number of multipliers. This may not have been an issue with ASICs in as much as the number of hardwired multipliers on a chip is not limited as it is in an FPGA chip. One contribution in this research is to propose an alternative to D'Andrea's synchronizer by replacing the long FIR filter with two single-pole Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) filters that are directly placed inside the timing recovery loop. This novel architecture, which drastically reduces the number of multipliers, is well suited for FPGA implementation.<p> Non-data-aided feedforward synchronizers, which use the same prefilter as D'Andrea's synchronizer, have been receiving significant attention in recent years. Detailed performance analysis for these synchronizers can be found in the open literature. These synchronizers have the advantage of using a feedfordward structure rather than a feedback structure, as it is the case in D'Andrea's synchronizer, to estimate the timing. While D'Andrea's synchronizer has an advantage in performance over a non-data-aided feedforward synchronizer, this has not been reported in the literature. In this thesis a second contribution consists of thoroughly analyzing the steady state timing jitter in D'Andrea synchronizer by deriving a closed-form expression for the noise power spectrum and a simple equation to estimate the timing jitter variance. <p> A third contribution is a novel low-complexity and fast acquisition coherent detector for the detection of Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) (i.e., 4-QAM) symbols. This detector performs carrier phase synchronization much faster than a conventional coherent detector. The acquisition time is comparable to that of a differential detector. The fast acquisition comes at the expense of phase jitter, and the end result is a 1 dB performance loss over theoretical coherent detection. This detector can be used in place of the differential detector with no economic penalty. Doing so yields a performance advantage of about 2 dB over differential detection.

The recent advance in Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology has been largely embraced by the communication industry, which views this technology as an effective and economical alternative to the design of Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). The primary reasons for switching to FPGAs are lower development and non-recurring engineering costs, the flexibility to design to a preliminary standard and adapt the design as the standard evolves, as well as the option of performing software updates in the field.<p> A sector with strong interest in FPGAs is the coaxial cable TV/Internet distribution industry. The creation of soft preliminary standards by the standards organization governing the industry has been the main catalyst for the massive adoption of FPGAs by small to medium size companies, which see this technology as an opportunity to compete in this open market.<p> Both the circuit speed and the economy of FPGA technology depend upon using algorithms that map efficiently into its fabric. Often it is prudent to sacrifice performance to improve either clock speed or economy when developing with FPGAs. The purpose of this research is to both revise and devise synchronization algorithms / structures for cable digital receivers that are to be implemented in FPGA. <p> The main communication scheme used by the coaxial cable distribution industry is digital Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM). The problem of synchronizing to the QAM signal in the receiver is not a new topic and several synchronization-related circuits, which were devised with ASICs implementation in mind, can be found in the open literature. Of interest in this thesis is the non-data-aided digital timing synchronizer that was proposed by D'Andrea to recover timing with no knowledge of the transmitted data. Accurate timing estimation was achieved by reshaping the received signal with a prefilter prior to estimating the timing. <p> A problem with D'Andrea's synchronizer is that the prefilter for reshaping the signal is a relatively long Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter, whose implementation requires a large number of multipliers. This may not have been an issue with ASICs in as much as the number of hardwired multipliers on a chip is not limited as it is in an FPGA chip. One contribution in this research is to propose an alternative to D'Andrea's synchronizer by replacing the long FIR filter with two single-pole Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) filters that are directly placed inside the timing recovery loop. This novel architecture, which drastically reduces the number of multipliers, is well suited for FPGA implementation.<p> Non-data-aided feedforward synchronizers, which use the same prefilter as D'Andrea's synchronizer, have been receiving significant attention in recent years. Detailed performance analysis for these synchronizers can be found in the open literature. These synchronizers have the advantage of using a feedfordward structure rather than a feedback structure, as it is the case in D'Andrea's synchronizer, to estimate the timing. While D'Andrea's synchronizer has an advantage in performance over a non-data-aided feedforward synchronizer, this has not been reported in the literature. In this thesis a second contribution consists of thoroughly analyzing the steady state timing jitter in D'Andrea synchronizer by deriving a closed-form expression for the noise power spectrum and a simple equation to estimate the timing jitter variance. <p> A third contribution is a novel low-complexity and fast acquisition coherent detector for the detection of Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) (i.e., 4-QAM) symbols. This detector performs carrier phase synchronization much faster than a conventional coherent detector. The acquisition time is comparable to that of a differential detector. The fast acquisition comes at the expense of phase jitter, and the end result is a 1 dB performance loss over theoretical coherent detection. This detector can be used in place of the differential detector with no economic penalty. Doing so yields a performance advantage of about 2 dB over differential detection.

Ultra-Wideband ¡}UWB¡~Communication Technology is one of the potential technologies in indoor wireless communication applications. Because of the property of fine resolution of transmitted signal by UWB, it is powerful on indoor location applications. In the first place, we need to estimate the time of arrival based on the wireless location applications. Whether synchronization between the template signals and received signals affects directly the SNR of the estimator output and decreases the ranging accuracy. Because of the transmitted signal is the type of impulse radio for UWB system, it is more important on the time accuracy of the internal oscillator. In the thesis, we utilize the Delay-Locked Loop ¡}DLL¡~ structure with Self-tuning function to reduce the timing jitter in the internal oscillator. We can improve the stability in the tracking loop and utilize multipath canceller to cancel the multipath interference in the indoor environment. When reaching synchronization between the template signal and received signal by using the tracking loop, we can improve ranging accuracy and increase location precision according to the received signal.

Compared with Nd:YAG, the traditional high power solid state laser gain medium, Yb:YAG has less quantum defect, no excited state absorption, and longer fluorescence lifetime, which makes it suitable for Q-switched laser. In addition, concentration quenching is absent in Yb:YAG, higher concentration of active ion makes the thickness of gain medium thinner. For ring cavities, the necessity of symmetrical beam path is important, a thinner Yb:YAG crystal can reduce the shift of optical beam path and avoids cavity unstability. Thus, Yb:YAG is suitable for the two-mirror ring cavity. In this study, a compact and efficient Yb:YAG ring laser with 50.3% slope efficiency was demonstrated. And the Yb:YAG ring laser performances influenced by thermal effect was analyzed and compared to that of Nd:YAG ring laser. The polarization of ring lasers with different configurations were also discussed. In manufacturing process, the coating design on gain medium and laser mirrors were introduced. The advantages of passively Q-switched laser are efficient, compact, simple setup and no complicated driving circuits. They make passively Q-switched laser suitable for various applications, such as nonlinear optics, medical treatment, micromachining, material processing, and range finder. Due to spontaneous noise from the gain medium, conventional passively Q-switched laser has large timing jitter. This study is to build up a passively Q-switched Yb:YAG/Cr4+:YAG ring laser with lower timing jitter. At present, a Q-switched ring laser with a peak power of 208 W and a pulse width of 33 ns, was developed. Its slope efficiency is 18.1% with a timing jitter of 11.9%. To our knowledge, this is the first passively Q-switched Yb:YAG/Cr4+:YAG ring laser.

Monolithic passively mode-locked colliding pulse semiconductor lasers generating pico- to sub-picosecond terahertz optical pulse trains are promising sources for future applications in ultra-high speed data transmission systems and optical measurements. However, in the absence of external synchronization, these passively mode-locked lasers suffer from large amplitude and timing jitter instabilities resulting in broad comb linewidths, which precludes many applications in the field of coherent communications and signal processing where a much narrower frequency line set is needed. In this dissertation, a novel quantum dot based coupled cavity laser is presented, where for the first time, four-wave mixing (FWM) in the monolithically integrated saturable absorber is used to injection lock a monolithic colliding pulse mode-locked (CPM) laser with a mode-locked high-Q ring laser. Starting with a passively mode-locked master ring laser, a stable 30 GHz optical pulse train is generated with more than 10 dB reduction in the RF noise level at 20 MHz offset and close to 3-times reduction in the average optical linewidth of the injection locked CPM slave laser. The FWM process is subsequently verified experimentally and conclusively shown to be the primary mechanism responsible for the observed injection locking. Other linear scattering effects are found to be negligible, as predicted in the orthogonal waveguide configuration. The novel injection locking technique is further exploited by employing optical hybrid mode-locking and increasing the Q of the master ring cavity, to realize an improved stabilization architecture. Dramatic reduction is shown with more than 14-times reduction in the photodetected beat linewidth and almost 5-times reduction in the optical linewidth of the injection locked slave laser with generation of close to transform limited pulses at ~ 30 GHz. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of the novel injection locking technique for an all-on-chip stability transfer and provides a new way of stabilizing monolithic optical pulse sources for applications in future high speed optical networks.

Die vorliegende Doktorarbeit beschäftigt sich mit der experimentellen Studie zweier miteinander verbundener Phänomene: Dem intrinsischen Timing-Jitter in einem supraleitendenden Nanodraht-Einzelphotonen-Detektor (SNSPD) und der Relaxation der Elektronenenergie in supraleitenden Filmen. Supraleitende Nanodrähte auf einem dielektrischen Substrat als mikroskopische Grundbausteine jeglicher SNSPDs stellen sowohl für theoretische als auch für experimentelle Studien komplexe Objekte dar. Die Komplexität ergibt sich aus der Tatsache, dass SNSPDs in der Praxis stark ungeordnete und ultradünne supraleitende Filme verwenden, die eine akustische Fehlanpassung zu dem zugrundeliegenden Substrat aufweisen und einen Nichtgleichgewichts-Zustand implizieren. Die Arbeit untersucht die Komplexität des am weitesten in der SNSPD Technologie verbreiteten Materials, Niobnitrid (NbN), indem verschiedene experimentelle Methoden angewandt werden. Als eine mögliche Anwendung der SNSPD-Technologie wird ein Prototyp eines dispersiven Raman-Spektrometers mit Einzelphotonen-Sensitivität demonstriert. / This Ph.D. thesis is based on the experimental study of two mutually interconnected phenomena: intrinsic timing jitter in superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) and relaxation of the electron energy in superconducting films. Microscopically, a building element of any SNSPD device, a superconducting nanowire on top of a dielectric substrate, represents a complex object for both experimental and theoretical studies. The complexity arises because, in practice, the SNSPD utilizes strongly disordered and ultrathin superconducting films, which acoustically mismatch with the underlying substrate, and implies a non-equilibrium state. This thesis addresses the complexity of the most conventional superconducting material used in SNSPD technology, niobium nitride (NbN), by applying several distinct experimental techniques. As an emerging application of the SNSPD technology, we demonstrate a prototype of the dispersive Raman spectrometer with single-photon sensitivity.

Ultrawideband (UWB) is one of the promising technologies for future short-range high data rate communications (e.g. for wireless personal area networks) and longer range low data rate communications (e.g. wireless sensor networks).Despite its various advantages and potentials (e.g. low-cost circuitry, unlicensed reuse of licensed spectrum, precision ranging capability etc.), UWB also has its own challenges. The goal of this dissertation is to identify and address some of those challenges, and provide a framework for practical UWB transceiver design.In this dissertation, various modulation options for UWB systems are reviewed in terms of their bit error rate (BER) performances, spectral characteristics, modem and hardware complexities, and data rates. Time hopping (TH) code designs for both synchronous (introduced an adaptive code assignment technique) and asynchronous UWB impulse radio (IR) systems are studied. An adaptive assignment of two different multiple access parame ters (number of pulses per symbol and number of pulse positions per frame)is investigated again considering both synchronous and asynchronous scenarios, and a mathematical framework is developed using Gaussian approximations of interference statistics for different scenarios. Channel estimation algorithms for multiuser UWB communication systems using symbol-spaced (proposed a technique that decreases the training size), frame-spaced (proposed a pulse-discarding algorithm for enhanced estimationperformance), and chip-spaced (using least squares (LS) estimation) sampling are analyzed.A comprehensive review on multiple accessing andinterference avoidance/cancellation for IR-UWB systems is presented.BER performances of different UWB modulation schemes in the presence of timing jitter are evaluated and compared in static and multipath fading channels, and finger estimation error, effects of jitter distribution, and effects of pulse shape are investigated. A unified performance analysis app roach for different IR-UWB transceiver types (stored-reference, transmitted-reference, and energy detector) employing various modulation options and operating at sub-Nyquist sampling rates is presented. The time-of-arrival (TOA) estimation performance of different searchback schemesunder optimal and suboptimal threshold settings are analyzed both for additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and multipath channels.

Timing offsets result from the use of real clocks that are non-ideal in sampling intervals. These offsets also known as timing jitter were shown to degrade the performance of the two forms of UWB systems impulse radio and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based UWB. It was shown that for impulse radio, timing jitter distorts the correlation property of the transmitted signal and the resulting performance loss is proportional to the root-mean-square (RMS) value of the timing jitter. For the OFDM-based UWB, timing jitter introduced inter-channel interference (ICI) and the performance loss was dependent on the product of the bandwidth and the RMS of the timing jitter. A number of techniques were proposed for mitigating the performance degradation in each form of UWB. Specifically, for impulse radio, the methods of pulse shaping and sample averaging were provided, whereas for OFDM-based UWB, oversampling and adaptive modulation were given. Through analysis and simulation, it was shown that substantial gain in signal power-to-noise ratio can be achieved using these jitter-reduction methods.