Photonic-lantern-based coherent LIDAR system

In this work, a photonic-lantern-based coherent LIDAR system is experimentally demonstrated and the voltage signal-to-noise ratio improvement is analyzed. A voltage signal-to-noise ratio (SNRV) improvement of 2.8 is demonstrated experimentally for photonic-lantern-based coherent receivers relative to single-mode coherent receivers. The voltage signal-to-noise ratio improvement is obtained when other parameters are kept constant. We have also analyzed the effect of random optical power distribution among the single-mode fibers. We found that the distribution does not significantly impact the SNRV improvement. The mean value of voltage signal-to-noise ratio improvement is found to be similar to 2.4. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America