Effect of wavelength accuracy of reconstruction-equivalent-chirp laser arrays on performance of wavelength division multiplexing space laser communication system

Abstract. To evaluate the effect of crosstalk caused by wavelength deviation of reconstruction-equivalent-chirp (REC) integrated multi-wavelength laser arrays (MWLAs) on an optical free-space communication system in which wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) is applied, we derive the model of power penalty caused by the wavelength deviation of REC-MWLAs and the bit error rate (BER) of the system under atmospheric turbulence and conduct a numerical simulation. The two adjacent channels in arranged REC laser arrays are defined as the analysis scope. We find that the power penalty is more sensitive to the deviation of the channel itself than the adjacent channel as the frequency shift increases from 0 to 50 GHz. The numerical relationship between the BER and power penalty is drawn to further investigate the tolerance for wavelength deviation under the requirements of BER  <  10  −  6 and BER  <  10  −  9. In addition, for a smaller deviation of 5 GHz of the analyzed channel, the linewidth compression of the REC laser can decrease the power penalty from 1.3 to 0.7 dB, improving the system performance and moderating the demands for deviation of REC-MWLAs, and the gemination of channel spacing does not evidently reduce the requirement for deviation. The results of this work demonstrate the feasibility of REC-MWLAs as the light source of WDM free-space communication systems under atmospheric turbulence and provide an effective reference for the allowable deviation in the design and testing of MWLAs.