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.     

A Novel Mach–Zehnder Interferometer Based on Hybrid Liquid Crystal–Photonic Crystal Fiber

We propose a novel all fiber Mach–Zehnder interferometer(MZI) based on photonic crystal fiber(PCF) filled with liquid crystal(LC). The interference between the core mode and the cladding modes of a PCF is utilized.To excite the cladding modes, a region is formed using fiber fusion splicer. Due to the fact that varying effective index difference between the core region and the LC-filled cladding region can cause different transmission spectra,we mainly study the MZIs with different LC-filled structures and different lengths of LC filling. The measured results demonstrate that quite clear interference spectra can be obtained. Through analysis spatial frequency spectrum and temperature spectrum of two MZIs with different LC-filled structures, we can obtain that the MZI with adjacent two LC-filled holes has clearer interference spectrum and higher temperature sensitivity. Thus we choose this MZI to measure the temperature sensitivity with different lengths of LC filling. When the length of LC filling is 2 cm, the temperature sensitivities can be enlarged to 1.59 nm/C. The interferometer shows a good temperature tunability and sensitivity, which can be a good candidate for a highly tunable optical filtering and temperature sensing applications.     

Simulation of Third-Order Intermodulation Distortion Suppression Incorporating Dual-Parallel Mach–Zehnder Modulator in a CR-SSB Modulation

A novel scheme is proposed to enlarge the spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) of microwave photonic (MWP) link by using dual-parallel Mach–Zehnder modulator, which modifies the single sideband signal and replaces the optical carrier with an unmodulated one to remove the optical main sources of third-order intermodulation distortion (IMD3). Simulation results show that the IMD3 and fifth-order intermodulation distortion can be suppressed greatly even when the modulation depth increases to a high value, and the link is limited by seventh-order intermodulation distortion and the SFDR is improved by 34.2 dB Hz in a 1-Hz bandwidth. The error vector magnitude of the MWP link with the proposed scheme is improved significantly for the transmitted 1-Gbit/s 16- quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signal.     

Photonic Electric-Field Sensor Utilizing an Asymmetric Ti:LiNbO3 Mach–Zehnder Interferometer with a Dipole Antenna

Abstract

The use of an asymmetric Ti:LiNbO₃ Mach–Zehnder interferometer with a dipole antenna to measure an electric-field strength is described in this article. The device has a small size of 46 × 7 × 1 mm and operates at a wavelength of 1.3 μm. The AC output characteristics show the modulation depth of ~75% at V_π voltage of ~5.3 V. The minimum detectable electric fields are ~0.28 V/m and ~0.646 V/m, corresponding to a dynamic range of about ~32 dB and ~26 dB at frequencies 20 MHz and 50 MHz, respectively. The sensors exhibit an almost linear response for the applied electric-field intensity from 0.298 V/m to 29.84 V/m.     

Frequency quadrupling using an integrated Mach–Zehnder modulator with four arms

In this paper, a novel technique to realize frequency quadrupling in the radio over fiber system is proposed. The frequency quadrupling is achieved by using an integrated Mach–Zehnder modulator (MZM) consisting of a 1 × 4 multimode interference (MMI) coupler and four optical phase modulator arms. Due to the inherent optical splitting ratio and phase relations between the outputs of the MMI coupler, the optical harmonics at + 1 order and ? 3 order are generated corresponding to four times frequency of the microwave drive signal, only by setting the DC bias voltage of the main MZM at the minimum transmission point. That leads to the integrated MZM with reduced complexity compared with the conventional dual-parallel MZM. The effect of the nonideal integrated MZM, including the splitting imbalance and the bias drift, on all the sidebands is also analyzed theoretically. The following simulation results show that the slight deviation of the ideal values would not cause great degradation of the generated optical millimeter-wave signal.     

Mach–Zehnder interferometer with squeezed and EPR entangled optical fields

We study a scheme for Mach-Zehnder(MZ) interferometer as a quantum linear device by injecting two-mode squeezed input states into two ports of interferometer.Two-mode squeezed states can be changed into two types of inputs for MZ interferometer:two squeezed states and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen(EPR) entangled states.The interference patterns of the MZ interferometer vary periodically as the relative phase of the two arms of the interferometer is scanned,and are measured by the balanced homodyne detection system.Our experiments show that there are different interference patterns and periodicity of the output quantum states for two cases which depend on the relative phase of input optical fields.Since MZ interferometer can be used to realize some quantum operations,this work will have the important applications in quantum information and metrology.     

Optical fiber strain and temperature sensor based on an in-line Mach–Zehnder interferometer using thin-core fiber

We propose and demonstrate a fiber in-line Mach–Zehnder interferometer using thin-core fibers. This in-line interferometer is composed of a short section of thin-core fiber inserted between two single mode fibers (SMF), and demonstrated as a strain and temperature sensor in this study. A strain sensitivity of ?1.83 pm/με with a measurement range of 0?2000 με, and the temperature sensitivity of ?72.89 pm/°C with a temperature variation of 50 °C are achieved. We also discussed that the influence of strain and temperature change on the relative power ratios among the excited cladding modes in thin-core fibers.     

Detecting the classical harmonic vibrations of micro amplitudes and low frequencies with an atomic Mach–Zehnder interferometer

Here we present an example of an axially symmetric spacetime, representing pure radiation, and admitting circular closed timelike curves (CTCs) on the $z= \hbox {constant plane}$ . The spacetime is regular everywhere, having no curvature singularities and is locally isometric to (non-vacuum) pp wave spacetimes. The stability of the CTCs under linear perturbations is studied and they are found to be stable from a calculation of the Lyapunov exponent for the deviation vector. We also demonstrate that the spacetime also admits non-circular CTCs which do not lie in this plane. A modification of the metric is also studied and we find that a region of this spacetime behaves like a time-machine where CTCs appear after a certain instant of time.     

The Cavity of a Laser with an Interferential–Polarizational Filter Based on Phase Interferometers

Optics and Spectroscopy - It is proposed to use the phase properties of a reflective interferometer upon oblique incidence for spectral selection in lasers. The effect is achieved due to the...     

Nanosecond Bias-Free Mach–Zehnder Electro-Optic Switch Based on Dye-Doped Polymer DR1/SU-8 and Microstrip Line Electrode

Abstract

A bias-free Mach–Zehnder interferometer electro-optic switch is demonstrated with a dye-doped polymer Disperse Red 1 (Tokyo Chemical Industry, Co., LTD, Tokyo, Japan)/SU-8 (MicroChem Corp., Newton, Massachusetts, USA) and microstrip line electrode. The device is carefully designed and optimized for bias-free function and high-speed switching using the three-dimensional beam-propagation method and extended point-matching method, and the switch is seriously fabricated by a wet-etching technique and inductively coupled plasma etching technique for good control of dimension parameters. The measured rise time and fall time at 1,550 nm are both at the level of ~10 ns. Owing to the bias-free function and nanosecond response speed, this switch exhibits potential applications of high-speed optical routing and exchanging.     

A Mach–Zehnder interferometer based on peanut structure for temperature and refractive index measurement

Optical Review - A fiber Mach–Zehnder (M-Z) interferometer based on the peanut structure is proposed to measure the temperature and the refractive index (RI). This design includes the...     

All-fiber intermodal Mach–Zehnder interferometer based on a long-period fiber grating combined with a fiber bitaper

We report a novel all-fiber narrow-bandwidth intermodal Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) based on a long-period fiber grating (LPFG) combined with a fiber bitaper, and the MZI has no special limit for the resonant wavelength of the LPFG. Its responses to temperature and axial strain are studied theoretically and experimentally. Experimental results indicate that the temperature sensitivity is 0.0585 nm/°C within the temperature range from 30 °C to 90 °C and the axial strain sensitivity of 0.00013 nm/με can be neglected. Furthermore, as only the common single-mode fiber (SMF) is required during the fabrication process, the proposed device is cost effective and has good practicability in the optical sensing systems.     

Fabrication and characterization on an organic/inorganic 2 × 2 Mach–Zehnder interferometer thermo-optic switch

An organic/inorganic hybrid 2 × 2 directional coupler (DC) Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) thermo-optic (TO) switch was successfully designed and fabricated using simple direct ultraviolet photolithography process. The hybrid organic/inorganic waveguide structure includes poly-methyl-methacrylate-glycidyl-methacrylate (P(MMA-GMA)), SU-8 2005 and silica as core, upper cladding and under cladding, respectively. Device optimization and simulation were performed to decrease radiation loss and leakage loss, quicken response time and cut down power consumption. Measurements of the fabricated devices at 1550 nm wavelength result in a switching power of 7.2 mW, a response time of ∼100 μs, and crosstalk of −22.8 and −26.5 dB under cross state and bar state, respectively. Besides, the driving-noise-tolerance characteristics of this device were experimentally investigated by directly imposing a generated tunable noise on the pure driving signal (4 V_pp) and the minimum extinction ratio is larger than 18 dB under a noise level of 2.5 V_pp. The effect of noise on extinction ratio was found decreased with the increase of noise frequency.     

Picosecond all-optical switching using nonlinear Mach–Zehnder with silicon subwavelength grating and photonic wire arms

We investigate the picosecond switching capabilities of a planar waveguide interferometric photonic device when used for all-optical wavelength conversion of one picosecond pulses. Our device comprises a subwavelength grating waveguide arm and a photonic wire waveguide arm in a Mach–Zehnder configuration, fabricated on the silicon-on-insulator material platform. No detrimental effects of pulse broadening for transient pulses were observed.     

A high-Q biochemical sensor using a total internal reflection mirror-based triangular resonator with an asymmetric Mach–Zehnder interferometer

We propose and analyze a high effective Q-factor triangular ring resonator (TRR) coupled with an asymmetric Mach–Zehnder interferometer (AMZI), in which the long evanescent fields on a total internal reflection (TIR) mirror in the TRR and the field cancelation by the phase difference of each path in the AMZI are utilized. The TRR is employed in order to more effectively measure the quantities that occur during biological events because the evanescent field of the TIR mirror with its sharp incident angle is influenced by the Goos–Hänchen shift. In this paper, we report upon the AMZI-coupled TRR sensor structure with the high effective Q-factor of about 10⁵ obtained through the optimization of the AMZI path-length. The sensitivity of the resonance shift when changing the refractive index of 1 × 10^? 4 at the incidence angle of 22.92° has been identified to be as high as 0.48 × 10⁴ nm/RIU. In addition, the power sensitivity of the AMZI-coupled TRR with a 17 dB attenuation is 5.7 × 10⁵ dB/RIU.     

Transmission and Conversion of Electromagnetic Radiation by Photonic Crystal Metal–Dielectric Systems Based on Opals

Optics and Spectroscopy - An experimental study of the optical properties of two types of metal–dielectric composites based on opal matrices has been carried out: (1) layered structures,...     

2-μm switchable dual-wavelength fiber laser with cascaded filter structure based on dual-channel Mach–Zehnder interferometer and spatial mode beating effect

We demonstrated a 2-μm switchable dual-wavelength fiber laser with cascaded filter structure based on dual-channel Mach–Zehnder interferometer and spatial mode beating effect. Few-mode fiber-embedded Sagnac ring configuration and a Mach–Zehnder interferometer are cascaded to form a multiwavelength filter for our previous 2-μm fiber laser. By adopting suitable fiber length and adjusting the polarization controller, we obtained a 2-μm dual-wavelength fiber laser with switchable wavelength interval. Experimental results revealed that the proposed laser shows higher quality and better stability compared with our previous work and it has potential applications in the fields of atmospheric propagation and microwave photonics.     

Precision Tunable Infrared Source at 10 μM: CO2-Laser/Microwave-Sideband System with an Evenson CO2 Laser and a Cheo Waveguide Modulator

A CO₂-laser/microwave-sideband tunable infrared source system has been newly built at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) in Canada. The system employs a high-resolution CO₂ laser of Evenson design that lases on a wide range of lines including hot and sequence band lines as well as high-J lines of the regular 9.6 and 10.6 m bands. The frequency of the CO₂ laser is stabilized to the Lamb dip in the 4.3 m fluorescence signal in an external CO₂ cell. Microwave (MW) sidebands are generated in a Cheo-type infrared waveguide modulator driven by a synthesized sweeper and a traveling wave tube (TWT) amplifier. The MW sidebands appear on either side of the CO₂ laser line, and are individually separated from the carrier by a tunable Fabry-Perot etalon. The sidebands currently have a typical power of about 1.4 mW and a continuous frequency tuning range of 22 GHz (from ± to ±18 GHz) when 5 W laser power and 15 W microwave power are delivered to the modulator. Details are given on the source construction and measured performance characteristics. Features of the source and its planned applications are discussed.