Ultrawideband monocycle pulse generation based on polarization modulator and low speed electrical NRZ signal

Abstract

A novel ultrawideband (UWB) monocycle pulse generation system by modulating a polarization modulator (PolM) with a low speed electrical nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) signal is proposed, which significantly reduce the bandwidth requirement of the driving signal. At each bit transition of the input NRZ signal, two polarity-reversed Gaussian pulses are generated. By properly setting the delay between these two Gaussian pulses, an optical UWB monocycle pulse can be generated. Biphase modulation (BPM) can be realized by electrically switching the polarization direction at the output of PolM, if an electrically tunable arbitrary wave plate (AWP) is employed.