Circle polarization shift keying with direct detection for free-space optical communication

A binary polarization shift-keying scheme with two circle polarization states, circle polarization shift keying (CPolSK), is proposed and discussed. The propagation of the circle-polarized Gaussian Schell model beam is studied based on the cross-spectral density matrix. The results show that the state of polarization remains unchanged and the degree of polarization slightly increases upon propagation in a turbulent atmosphere. The analysis of the bit-error-rate performance shows that the CPolSK system has about a 3 dB lower requirement in signal-to-noise ratio than the on off keying system. The modulation scheme will be helpful for practical free-space optical communication systems in the future. © 2009 Optical Society of America.