Stochastic Analysis of Laser Phase Noise in Photonics-Assisted Radio Frequency Beamforming
Abstract
This paper develops a stochastic model for quantifying the impact of laser phase noise on photonics-assisted radio frequency (RF) beamforming. Unlike conventional deterministic models, the presented theoretical framework captures the statistical randomness associated with the RF array factor of beamforming networks driven by finite-linewidth lasers. Fourier-domain analysis reveals that laser phase noise reshapes the spatial coherence function of such beamforming networks, inducing coherent RF aperture shrinkage, beam-pattern distortion, and directivity degradation. The analysis highlights that beamforming network architectures employing nanosecond-scale optical differential delays can exhibit substantial performance degradation even when driven by commercially available narrow-linewidth (kHz-range) lasers. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that average RF power gain gets downscaled and fluctuations dominate in large-aperture beamforming networks due to phase noise, imposing an upper limit on the maximum achievable RF antenna array-size. The reported results highlight the quantitative performance and scalability limits imposed by laser phase noise in photonics-assisted RF beamforming, offering key design guidelines for implementing large-scale beamforming networks in next-generation wireless communications, sensing, radar, and radio astronomy applications.
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BibTeX
@misc{ghosh2026stochastic,
title = {{Stochastic Analysis of Laser Phase Noise in Photonics-Assisted Radio Frequency Beamforming}},
author = {Niloy Ghosh and David Prinsloo and Eduward Tangdiongga},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.32563},
eprint = {2610.32563},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.32563},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Stochastic Analysis of Laser Phase Noise in Photonics-Assisted Radio Frequency Beamforming
AU - Niloy Ghosh
AU - David Prinsloo
AU - Eduward Tangdiongga
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/23
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.32563
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.32563
AB - This paper develops a stochastic model for quantifying the impact of laser phase noise on photonics-assisted radio frequency (RF) beamforming. Unlike conventional deterministic models, the presented theoretical framework captures the statistical randomness associated with the RF array factor of beamforming networks driven by finite-linewidth lasers. Fourier-domain analysis reveals that laser phase noise reshapes the spatial coherence function of such beamforming networks, inducing coherent RF aperture shrinkage, beam-pattern distortion, and directivity degradation. The analysis highlights that beamforming network architectures employing nanosecond-scale optical differential delays can exhibit substantial performance degradation even when driven by commercially available narrow-linewidth (kHz-range) lasers. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that average RF power gain gets downscaled and fluctuations dominate in large-aperture beamforming networks due to phase noise, imposing an upper limit on the maximum achievable RF antenna array-size. The reported results highlight the quantitative performance and scalability limits imposed by laser phase noise in photonics-assisted RF beamforming, offering key design guidelines for implementing large-scale beamforming networks in next-generation wireless communications, sensing, radar, and radio astronomy applications.
ER -