Optical millimeter-wave transmission using a dual-polarization external cavity diode laser

The authors report on a novel approach to optical millimeter-wave transmission. The use of a dual-polarization emission external cavity diode laser combined with intrinsic polarization properties of standard LiNbO/sub 3/ Mach-Zehnder interferometer modulators offers a simple and flexible transmitter configuration. Successful transmission of 200-Mb/s binary amplitude shift keying on a 58-GHz carrier at 1.55-/spl mu/m optical wavelength is demonstrated.