RT Dissertation/Thesis
T1 Design and characterisation of a fully integrated indium phosphide transmitter for satellite optical communications
T2 Diseño y caracterización de un transmisor integrado en fosfuro de indio para comunicaciones ópticas por satélite
A1 Forde Eoin, Peter
K1 2209.10 Láseres
AB There is a growing demand for compact, high throughput optical satellite communications terminals, due to ever-increasing usage of CubeSats and NanoSats with tight volume and mass constraints, as well as increasing demands on the RF spectrum as a communications channel.In this work, atmospheric data was used to estimate an initial link budget. From this a fully integrated InP photonic QPSK (quadrature phase-shift keying) transmitter has been designed and simulated, with the intent of providing a solution to the technology gap. However, due to a failure of the phase modulators, the transmitter was instead tested as an OOK (on-off keying) transmitter with reduced transmission rate (3Gbps). A second set of chips were designed and measured in order to test individual components of the transmitter chip.Radiation testing has been performed on the transmitter and on an integrated laser on the same InP platform to gain some insight into the robustness of this technology in the radiation environment. This is the first time such radiation testing has been performed on this integrated photonics platform.This thesis describes the experimental results of the radiation test on different components and on a complete InP circuit. The measured results show a negligible degradation of the parameters of the various components. Only the integrated laser shows degraded end of life performance, but remains capable of establishing a lower transmission rate link with a ground station. These results confirm for the first time the ability of a coherent transmitter designed for LEO satellites in InP material to be used as a key component in satellite transmission systems.From the test results, it has been determined that the proposed transmitter design, even in the most demanding radiation environment of low Earth orbit, will be capable of establishing a ~0.3Gbps downlink, at a range of 550km, to a COTS ground station.
LK http://hdl.handle.net/11093/6915
UL http://hdl.handle.net/11093/6915
LA eng
DS Investigo
RD 18-ene-2025