Long-Wave Infrared Discrete Multitone Free-Space Transmission Using a 9.15-μm Quantum Cascade Laser

A free-space optical (FSO) transmission system is experimentally demonstrated in the long-wave infrared (LWIR, $9.15~\mu \text{m}$ ) using a directly modulated quantum cascade laser (DM-QCL) and a commercial mercury-cadmium-telluride infrared photovoltaic detector. At room temperature, the DM-QCL is current-modulated by discrete multitone signals pre-processed with bit-/power-loading. Up to 5.1 Gbit/s data rate is achieved with bit error rate performance below the 6.25% overhead hard-decision forward error correction limit of $4.5\times 10^{-3}$ , enabled by a frequency domain equalizer. The stability study of the FSO system is also performed at multiple temperature values. This study can provide a valuable reference for future terrestrial and space communications.