Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1109/JLT.2020.3032923

Optical heterodyne analog radio-over-fiber (A-RoF) links provide an efficient solution for future millimeter wave (mm-wave) wireless systems. The phase noise of the photo-generated mm-wave carrier limits the performance of such links, especially, for the transmission of low subcarrier baud rate multi-carrier signals. In this work, we present three different techniques for the compensation of the laser frequency offset (FO) and phase noise (PN) in an optical heterodyne A-RoF system. The first approach advocates the use of an analog mm-wave receiver; the second approach uses standard digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms, while in the third approach, the use of a photonic integrated mode locked laser (MLL) with reduced DSP is advocated. The compensation of the FO and PN with these three approaches is demonstrated by successfully transmitting a 1.95 MHz subcarrier spaced orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal over a 25 km 61 GHz mm-wave optical heterodyne A-RoF link. The advantages and limitations of these approaches are discussed in detail and with regard to recent 5G recommendations, highlighting their potential for deployment in next generation wireless systems.