Mitigation of scintillation in FSO communication using a temporally and spatially incoherent spectrum-sliced light source.

We propose and demonstrate a temporally and spatially incoherent spectrum-sliced light source for scintillation mitigation in free-space optical (FSO) communications. For the temporal incoherence, we utilize the spectrum-sliced incoherent light (SSIL) modulated by gain-saturated reflective semiconductor optical amplifiers for data modulation and the suppression of excess intensity noise inherent in a narrowband incoherent light source. We then employ offset launching from a single-mode fiber to a multi-mode fiber to add the spatial incoherence to the SSIL source. The experimental demonstration shows that this temporally and spatially incoherent light is effective in mitigating scintillation. For example, this light source reduces the transmitter power required to achieve a bit-error ratio of 10 by ∼6 dB in comparison with the laser source. This is an ∼3 dB larger reduction in the transmitter power than the reduction achieved by a temporally incoherent light source.