A novel optical mm-wave generation scheme based on three parallel Mach-Zehnder modulators

We propose a novel optical mm-wave generation scheme based on three parallel Mach-Zehnder modulators (MZMs) for the first time. First, the scheme is investigated theoretically, which suggests that it can be used for sextupling, 12-tupling, and 18-tupling mm-wave generation. Then simulation results are given, 60 GHz mm-wave is generated from 5 GHz, or 10 GHz RF oscillator based on frequency 12-tupling or sextupling, and 90 GHz mm-wave is generated from 5 GHz RF oscillator based on frequency 18-tupling. The optical sideband suppression ratio (OSSR) and the radio frequency spurious suppression ratio (RFSSR) are analyzed by simulation, in which several non-ideal factors are taken into consideration. Results indicate that all the three mm-wave generation methods are practical and very good performance can be obtained when the extinction ratio of the MZM is 30 dB, even if the extinction ratio of the MZM is 20 dB, the performance is still good, especially for the sextupling mm-wave generation method, whose performance is excellent and insensitive to the extinction ratio of MZM, the non-ideal RF driving voltage and the non-ideal DC bias. At last, we set up a RoF system by simulation to verify the transmission performance of the scheme. The BER performance and eye diagrams are given.     

An optical mm-wave generation scheme by frequency octupling using a nested MMI

A novel method of a filterless optical millimeter-wave (MMW) signal generation with frequency octupling via a nested multimode interference (MMI) coupler is proposed for Radio-over-fiber systems. By setting the DC bias voltage applied to the central arms of MMI-b and MMI-c accurately, the optical carrier can be completely suppressed. The OSSR can be as high as about 58 dB without optical filter and the radio frequency spurious suppression ratio (RFSSR) exceeds 32 dB, which is the best result as we know. Simulation results suggest that when the generated optical mm-wave signal is transmitted along the standard single-mode fiber, the eye diagram is still opened after being transmitted over a 50 km fiber.     

Photon Generation Scheme of 32-Fold Millimeter-Wave Signal Based on Mach-Zehnder Modulator

This paper proposes a 32-tupling frequency millimeter-wave (MMW) filter-free system based on four Mach-Zehnder Modulators (MZM) connected in parallel and cascaded with a simple radio-fiber (RoF) link structure. The four MZMs are all at the maximum transmission point (MATP), and the radio frequency (RF) driving voltage phase difference between MZMs is π /2. The center carrier is suppressed by using an optical attenuator (OATT) and an optical phase shifter (OPS). Two parallel MZMs can generate ±8th order and ±12th order optical sidebands, and the ±4th order optical sidebands can be suppressed by adjusting the modulation index m of the MZM, using cascaded two dual-parallel MZMS(DPMZM) and the phase difference of the RF signal source is π/4 to generate ±16th order optical sidebands. The theoretical analysis and simulation experiments are performed for the scheme proposed in this paper. The results show that the simulated and theoretical values of the optical sideband suppression ratio (OSSR) for ±16th order optical sideband signals are 60.02 and 59.96 dB, respectively, and the simulated and theoretical values of the RF sideband suppression ratio (RFSSR) for the 32-tupling MMW signal are 56.34 and 53.94 dB, respectively.     

Photonic generation of high-purity 60 GHz millimeter-wave signal requiring only 10 GHz radio frequency local oscillator

A novel approach to generate 60 GHz millimeter-wave from a 10 GHz radio frequency signal using an integrated nested DD-MZM without optical filter is proposed and demonstrated. The simulation results show that the generated frequency sextupling optical mm-wave has high purity with an OSSR exceeding 29 dB and a RFSSR of 25 dB, which is consistent with the theoretical analysis. Besides, a RoF link model is established to investigate the transmission performance. The eye diagram keeps clear even when the optical mm-wave is transmitted over 60 km and the power penalty is about 0.4 dB after fiber transmission of 50 km.     

Frequency sextupling technique using two cascaded dual-electrode Mach–Zehnder modulators interleaved with Gaussian optical band-pass filter

A frequency sextupling technique for the generation of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) is proposed and investigated. The proposed technique is comprised of two cascaded dual-electrode Mach–Zehnder modulators (MZMs), which are interleaved with Gaussian optical band-pass filter (GOBF). The first MZM, biased at minimum transmission, is only used for optical carrier suppression modulation, and the second MZM, biased at maximum transmission, is used for both even-order optical harmonic generation and data signal modulation. The GOBF between two MZMs is used to suppress the high-order optical harmonics beyond the first-order optical harmonics. On the basis of theoretical analysis and simulated demonstrations, it is concluded that with the use of an RF signal at 10 GHz, which carries the data signal and drives the MZMs, an mm-wave signal at 60 GHz can be obtained. The simulation results show that the proposed sextuple leads to a 7 dB improvement in receiver sensitivity in comparison with the modulation technique, i.e. using two cascaded dual-electrode MZMs without GOBF. Furthermore, the eye diagrams show that the quality of generated mm-wave signal is satisfactory. The proposed technique is verified by experiments.     

A novel MI-insensitive and filterless frequency octupling scheme based on two parallel dual-parallel Mach–Zehnder modulators

A novel MI-insensitive and filterless frequency octupling scheme based on two parallel dual-parallel Mach–Zehnder modulators (DP-MZMs) is proposed. The proposed scheme is not sensitive to modulation index and relatively strong MMW signal with good radio frequency spurious suppression ratio (RFSSR) can be obtained without strict requirement on modulation index. Filterless feature makes the scheme quite suitable for wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) applications. For verification, a 60 GHz millimeter wave with 44 dB RFSSR is generated from a 7.5 GHz radio frequency wave by simulation. Performance of the proposed scheme has been characterized under different conditions including DC-bias drifts of MZMs, different amplitudes of RF inputs and different extinction ratios of MZMs.     

High carrier suppression double sideband modulation using polarization state rotation filter and optical external modulator

We propose a high carrier suppression double sideband modulation technique using a Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) and an integrated polarization state rotation filter (PSRF), which is designed to improve the carrier suppression ratio. With the functions of MZM and PSRF, about 30 dB carrier suppression ratio relative to first-order sidebands is demonstrated. Moreover, we demonstrate the optical generation of microwave/millimeter-wave signals by beating the carrier suppressed double sideband (DSB-SC) lightwave signals. The experimental results show that the improvement of carrier suppression ratio with PSRF can effectively cancel the modulating RF frequency component. A tunable and high purity microwave signal, which is limited by the bandwidth of MZM and photodetector (PD), is obtained, and it does not suffer from obvious phase noise degradation with 25 km transmission.     

Millimeter wave generation through frequency 12-tupling using DP-polarization modulators

The polarization modulators are being utilized for the millimeter wave (MM-Wave) generation because of their bias drift free operation and high extinction ratio. In this work, an optical millimeter wave generation through frequency 12 tupling using dual parallel polarization modulator (DP-PolM) is demonstrated. By setting RF drive voltage and proper polarization angle of the DP-PolM, the frequency 12-tupled optical millimeter is generated with an optical sideband suppression ratio (OSSR) of 37.76 dB and radio frequency sideband suppression ratio (RFSSR) of 31.67 dB. A good agreement between simulation and theoretical approach is achieved. Further, impact of non ideal parameters on the OSSR, RFSSR and BER are also analysed and presented.     

A Photonic mm-Wave Frequency Sextupler Using an Integrated Mach–Zehnder Modulator with Three Arms

Abstract

A novel photonic mm-wave frequency sextupling scheme based on an integrated Mach–Zehnder modulator with three arms is proposed in this article. Without any optical filter, a high-quality frequency sextupling mm-wave signal can be generated. Compared with mm-wave generation schemes based on traditional two-arm Mach–Zehnder modulators, the proposed scheme does not need DC bias and a complex electrical bias control circuit. Some non-ideal factors are taken into consideration to verify its performance, which proves that a slight deviation of the ideal values does not cause great degradation of the performance of the mm-wave generation scheme.     

Analysis of an optical mm-wave generation scheme with frequency octupling using two cascaded Mach-Zehnder modulators

We propose a novel method to generate optical mm-wave signals with frequency octupling using two cascaded Mach-Zehnder modulators (MZMs). First, the scheme is investigated both theoretically and by simulation, and results show that an 80 GHz mm-wave is generated by a 10 GHz RF oscillator. Then, an analytical expression is developed to describe the performance of the scheme. The influences caused by non-ideal factors are discussed in detail, and undesired sidebands suppression ratios are plotted and analyzed. At last a RoF system using the mm-wave generation scheme is demonstrated and its BER curves indicate that the performance of the system is still good even if the parameters deviate from the ideal values to a certain degree.     

Impact of higher order dispersion on Photonically assisted optical millimeter-wave generated using dual parallel electro-optic modulators

In this work, Author investigated the impact of higher order fiber dispersion terms upto third order (3OD) on optical mm-wave generated using two parallel Mach Zehnder Modulators (MZMs). Individual and combined effect of the second order- (2OD) and third order-(3OD) is studied theoretically and experimentally. Expression of fiber dispersion for proposed model is derived using the method of expansion of Bessel function & Taylor series theory. Effect of RF-driven voltage applied to MZM is discussed and analyzed for Optical Sideband Suppression Ratio (OSSR) and Radio Frequency Spurious Suppression Ratio (RFSSR). The Q-factor, Bit Error Rate (BER) and Eye pattern are investigated for ITU's G.655 fiber. Experimental and simulation analysis verified the theoretical analysis.     

Investigation of high-speed optical FSK generation scheme based on carrier suppression and phase modulation

We propose and numerically investigate a novel high-speed (40-Gb/s and above) optical frequency shift-keying (FSK) transmitter scheme. By optical carrier-suppressed modulation and differential phase-shift-keying (DPSK) to intensity modulation (IM) conversion, only one light source is needed in the proposed scheme to generate high-speed optical FSK signals. By using a Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) as phase modulator and an additional delay interferometer (DI) cascaded after the carrier-suppressed MZM to suppress the remaining carrier, the performance of our scheme can compete with the double-light-source counterparts. The transmission performances of the FSK signal generated with the proposed scheme as well as detuning and bandwidth tolerance of the demodulation filter are also carefully investigated. Simulation results show that the proposed FSK generation scheme is very suitable for the next-generation optical access network and optical label switching network. A potential application of our scheme in high-speed passive optical network is proposed.     

Linearization and dispersion tolerable technique for remote access unit in uplink RoF system based on gain-saturated RSOA cascaded EAM

A novel scheme of a remote access unit which is based on an electroabsorption modulator cascaded by a gain-saturated reflective semiconductor optical amplifier is proposed to improve a transmission performance of uplink signal. The cascaded gain-saturated reflective semiconductor optical amplifier plays a role in enhancing linearity of the electroabsorption modulator as well as suppressing dispersion-induced carrier suppression in the uplink transmission using its nonlinear gain property. In the proposed scheme, carrier-to-interference ratio of transmitted 10-GHz band uplink signal was improved by 10.7 dB and the dispersion-induced carrier suppression of 5.65-GHz RF carrier was greatly mitigated by 33.4 dB through the 75.6-km optical link.     

A novel approach for simultaneous millimeter wave generation and high bit rate data transmission for Radio over Fiber (RoF) systems

We propose a novel method for simultaneous transmission of OC-192 (9.95328 Gbps) digital data and 60 GHz RF generation in a Standard Single Mode Fiber (SSMF) link utilizing Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS). The system comprises of a 1550 nm DFB Laser diode, Mach Zehnder modulator (MZM), 50 km SSMF and Optical receiver. The receiver includes laser diode for optical pump, a regenerator for data retrieval and a RF bandpass filter for RF generation. This system requires minimum number of RF and optical components for the generation of 60 GHz RF. The remotely generated 60 GHz RF signal may be used for wireless transmission of data. The entire link is simulated in Optisystem software to analyze the system performance.     

A full-duplex radio-over-fiber link with 12-tupling mm-wave generation and wavelength reuse for upstream signal

A full-duplex radio-over-fiber (RoF) link with a novel scheme to generate 60 GHz mm-waves from a 5 GHz RF signal source is investigated. In the RoF downlink, the required frequency of the RF oscillator is reduced greatly. Since the optical carrier is not modulated by downstream data, part of it is reused to carry upstream data and the upstream data is transmitted to the central station using optical single-sideband modulation. In this way, a single wavelength is used for both downstream and upstream transmissions. Based on this scheme, a full-duplex RoF link is built and its transmission performance is analyzed. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulation show that the downstream signal cannot only eliminate code form distortion caused by time shift of the code edges, but also reduce the influence of the fading effect as the 60 GHz DSB optical mm-wave signal is transmitted along the fiber, and the upstream signal is immune to both fading effect and time shift of the code edges.     

A full-duplex radio-over-fiber system using direct modulation laser to generate optical millimeter-wave and wavelength reuse for uplink connection

In this paper, we present a full-duplex radio-over-fiber system incorporating both optical millimeter-wave (mm-wave) generation and wavelength reuse for uplink connection. The optical double sidebands (DSB) signal is generated by using only one inexpensive broadband direct modulation laser (DML), to which a mixing RF signal is applied. An optical interleaver is then used to separate the first-order optical sidebands from the optical carrier of optical DSB signal. The separated first-order optical sidebands are beat to generate mm-wave signal that has double the frequency of the RF drive signal, while the separated optical carrier is reused as light source to remodulate uplink signal. Both detailed theoretical analysis and experiments to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed system are presented. Experiment result shows that the bidirectional 2.5 Gb/s data can be successfully transmitted over 40 km standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) with less than 2 dB power penalty.     

Reduction of frequency fading and imperfect frequency response with pre-emphasis technique in OFDM-ROF systems

In this paper, a novel technique is proposed and experimentally demonstrated to reduce the effect of frequency fading (FF) and imperfect frequency response in direct-detection (DD) optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing-radio-over-fiber (OFD-MROF) systems. To overcome FF effect in the optical fiber and imperfect frequency response in the optical and electrical devices at the high frequency, we pre-emphasize the power of the millimeter wave (mm-wave) OFDM sub-carriers appropriately in the center station. Experimental result of the proposed system shows the received sensitivity has been improved about 2 dB at the BER of 1 × 10^− 4 after 50 km SSMF transmission for 2.5 Gb/s OFDM signal carried on 60 GHz optical mm-wave compared to the original system without pre-emphasis technique.     

Novel 60 GHz RoF system with optical single sideband mm-wave signal generation and wavelength reuse for uplink connection

In order to improve RF frequency to achieve higher bandwidth and larger capacity, we propose a novel scheme to generate optical single sideband (SSB) millimeter-wave, in which frequency doubling of local radio frequency (RF) is obtained by using one integrated Mach–Zehnder modulator (MZM), and we theoretically investigate the generating principle of SSB. The optical SSB modulation scheme is employed to generate 60 GHz optical mm-wave and the 2.5 Gb/s baseband signal is simultaneously up-converted at the central station (CS) for downlink transmission, and the optical carrier is reused for uplink connection at the base station (BS). The full-duplex 2.5 Gb/s data are successfully transmitted over 40 km standard single-mode fiber (SMF-28) for both uplink connection and downlink connection with less than 2-dB power penalty. Results show the novel 60 GHz RoF system with optical SSB mm-wave signal generation using optical frequency doubling is feasible and we can obtain simple cost-efficient configuration and good performance over long-distance transmission.     

64 GHz optical millimeter-wave generation by octupling 8 GHz local oscillator via a nested LiNbO3 modulator

A novel scheme to generate a 64 GHz optical millimeter (mm)-wave via a nested LiNbO₃ Mach-Zehnder modulator with an 8 GHz local oscillator is proposed and simulated. Since the frequency response of the modulator and the local oscillator frequency are greatly reduced, the bandwidth requirements of the optical and electrical components in the transmitter are significantly decreased. The simulation results show that the generated optical mm-wave signal maintains good performance even after being transmitted over 20 km standard single-mode fiber.     

Generation of optical carrier suppression millimeter-wave signal using one dual-parallel MZM to overcome chromatic dispersion

In this paper, we have proposed a novel approach to generate optical carrier suppression (OCS) mm-wave with signal only carried by one first-order sideband using a dual-parallel MZM in radio-over-fiber (RoF) system, and the transmission performance was also investigated. As the optical mm-wave signal is transmitted along the fiber, there is no time shift of the data symbols resulting from the group velocity dispersion in the fiber because the signal is only modulated on one sideband. The simulation results showed that the eye diagram keeps open and clear even when the optical mm-wave signals are transmitted over 96-km and the power penalty is about 1-dB after fiber transmission distance of 60-km, which is quite consistent with our theoretical analysis. Furthermore, the proposed OCS optical mm-wave generation approach is also used in a full-duplex RoF link based on wavelength reuse at the base station for the uplink due to another pure sideband without carrying data. The bidirectional 2.5-Gbit/s data is successfully transmitted over 40-km standard single mode fiber with less than 0.5-dB power penalty in the simulation. Both the unidirectional RoF downlink and the full-duplex RoF system have good performance.