Performance of homodyne detection of binary PSK optical signals.

This study evaluates the performance of an optical receiver for BPSK signals in the presence of noise originating from the photodetectors and the phase fluctuations of the optical sources. Analysis of homodyne detection process shows that the performance is degraded by two effects: One due to the phase error flucuations of the recovered carrier and the other due to reduction of the energy per bit available for data recovery. The resulting power penalty can be minimized by dividing in an optimal way the received optical signal between the carrier recovery and the data recovery circuits of the receiver.