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.