Low-Cost, Continuously Tunable, Millimeter-Wave Photonic LO Generation Using Optical Phase Modulation and DWDM Filters

Abstract

Abstract-We report on a low cost technique for the photonic generation of wideband continuously tunable millimeter-wave local oscillator signals. It is based on side band filtering using an optical phase modulator and thin film DWDM filters. The generated millimeter-wave signal exhibits low phase noise, and its frequency covers the Wand F-bands, from 75 GHz to 140 GHz.

Wireless Hybrid Mode Locked Lasers for Next Generation Radio-Over-Fiber Systems

“…The most common technique is the use of expensive external MZM [2], [11]- [16]. Although, quite recently a medium-cost approach has been demonstrated for Gb/s data transmission using a directly modulated un-cooled distributed feedback laser and an optically generated 40 GHz local oscillator source [38].…”

“…Traditionally, modulation at 60 GHz would be done with an expensive electro-optic modulator (EOM) [2] although more recently electro-absorption modulators have also been explored [10]. Up to now, several EOM based methods for mm-wave signal generation and data modulation using Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) have been proposed [2], [11]- [16]. Among these methods, double sideband (DSB) modulation schemes have a critical drawback caused by chromatic dispersion [11].…”

“…Whereas single sideband (SSB) modulation schemes [12], [13] which overcome the dispersion issue tend to have low signal-to-noise (SNR) characteristics. Other possible schemes include optical carrier suppression and optical phase modulation with optical filtering [14]- [16]. These have been applied to many RoF systems for better SNR characteristics of the generated mm-wave signals.…”

Nonlinearity and Noise Effects in Multi-Level Signal Millimeter-Wave Over Fiber Transmission Using Single and Dual Wavelength Modulation

“…To date a number of schemes have been proposed and experimentally demonstrated by different research groups [4]- [8]. Among them, the dual wavelength scheme is promising as it provides a simple system, offers good flexibility in the carrier frequency generation, independent of the data modulation, and does not need a high speed data modulator [8].…”

“…Among them, the dual wavelength scheme is promising as it provides a simple system, offers good flexibility in the carrier frequency generation, independent of the data modulation, and does not need a high speed data modulator [8]. The dual wavelength source can be set-up as a modelocked laser [9] or by externally modulating the laser [8]. The appropriate sidebands, or wavelengths, for the millimeterwave generation can be selected by bias tuning, with [8] or without optical filtering [1].…”