A novel frequency sextupling scheme for optical mm-wave generation utilizing an integrated dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder modulator

A novel scheme is proposed for frequency sextupling mm-wave generation based on a laser and an integrated dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) without optical filter. Theoretical analysis is presented to suppress the undesired optical sidebands for the high quality generation of frequency sextupling mm-wave signal. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated by simulations. Utilizing the integrated MZM consisted of two sub-MZMs with extinction ratio of 30 dB, the optical sideband suppression ratio (OSSR) is as high as 29.9 dB and the radio frequency spurious suppression ratio (RFSSR) exceeds 24 dB without any optical or electrical filter. The impact of the nonideal RF driven voltage and phase difference of RF driven signal applied to two sub-MZMs of the integrated MZM on OSSR and RFSSR is discussed and analyzed. After transmission over fiber, the generated optical mm-wave signal demonstrates good performance. Furthermore, the performance of two cases for the proposed scheme is also compared.     

Enhanced performance for 10 Gb/s long reach RSOA based WDM-PON by using power pre-emphasized OFDM signal

An extended reach 10 Gb/s wavelength division multiplexing passive optical networks (WDM-PONs) system based on reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA) is proposed by using power pre-emphasized orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal. Experimental results show that the proposed technique can effectively enhance the system performance against the limited bandwidth and chirp induced fading effect from direct modulation of RSOA. The receiver sensitivity is improved by 5 dB at the limit of BER for forward error correction (FEC) code over the 60 km and 85 km fiber transmission without any dispersion compensation module.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

High-resolution spectroscopy using interleaved 100 GHz optical frequency comb scanned by phase modulator

A high-resolution spectroscopy technique is proposed with an optical phase modulator combined with an interleaved optical frequency comb. The optical phase modulator and a frequency-locked laser light guarantee a spectral resolution less than 1 MHz on an absolute frequency axis. A wide measurement frequency range was realized using a 25 GHz optical frequency comb lying over a 4 THz frequency region. An extraction of single tooth intensity from the comb was realized by a heterodyne technique with a frequency-tunable laser used as a local oscillator. Also, the 25 GHz optical frequency comb was interleaved to generate four 100-GHz combs for removing the crosstalk from the 25 GHz neighboring sidebands in the teeth. This proposed spectroscopy technique was experimentally demonstrated with a resonator of less than 1 MHz linewidth and a H¹³C¹⁴N gas cell. Thus, a measurement frequency range higher than 4 THz (1530 nm-1560 nm) was confirmed with an effective spectral resolution 100 kHz order. In addition, the characteristics of the proposed system were compared with those of the previous system with a single-sideband (SSB) optical modulator.     

Practical optical frequency measurement system around 1.5 μm based on an acetylene-stabilized laser-locked optical frequency comb

We have developed a practical and precise frequency measurement system at 1.5 μm telecommunication band. An electro-optic-modulator based optical frequency comb is phase-locked to a dither-free acetylene-stabilized laser to realize an optical frequency comb with frequency uncertainty of 10 kHz (5 × 10⁻¹¹) and the linewidth of 15 kHz. The present frequency comb can be also used as an optical frequency reference grid defined by ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union, Telecommunication Standardization Sector). Using the present frequency measurement system, we have demonstrated the first optical frequency measurement of ¹²C¹⁶O overtone absorption lines around 1.56 μm with the uncertainty of lower than 900 kHz.     

A full-duplex radio-over-fiber system based on a novel double-sideband modulation and frequency quadrupling

We propose a novel radio-over-fiber system based on double-sideband (DSB) modulation and frequency quadrupling to reduce the system cost both at central office (CO) and base station (BS). In this system, by properly biasing the intensity modulator, the repetitive frequency of the optical millimeter-wave (mm-wave) is four times frequency of the local oscillator (LO) signal. Additionally, due to the single-sideband of the mm-wave carrying base data signal, our theoretical simulation shows that the generated mm-wave can be immunized the fading effect and the walk-off of signals.     

All optical SR and D flip-flop employing XGM effect in semiconductor optical amplifiers

This paper presents a simple and novel scheme for all-optical SR and D flip-flop employing cross gain modulation (XGM) effect in two wideband semiconductor optical amplifiers. The proposed flip-flop has a fast response, with less than 20 ps transition times for both rising and falling edges. The FF speed-limit is mainly determined by the SOA recovery time and the intra-FF coupling length. The simulation results exhibit a contrast ratio of 13 dB between two states with an AM of less than 2.5 dB.The distinctive simplicity of the flip-flop implies reduced footprint and low power consumption which makes it ideal for photonic integration.     

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.     

Optical millimeter-wave generation and transmission system for 1.25 Gbit/s downstream link using a gain switched laser

In this paper, we propose a novel and cost effective system for optical millimeter-wave (mm-wave) generation and transmission of downstream data based on a gain switched laser (GSL). The GSL produces an optical comb spectrum that can be appropriately filtered to generate two optical sidebands spaced by more than 4 times the repetition rate of the GSL. These sidebands are modulated by baseband data and then transmitted via optical fiber to the remote antenna unit (RAU). At the RAU, the two sidebands are heterodyned using a photodetector to generate the electrical modulated mm-wave signal, before demodulation using self mixing. We demonstrate the distribution of 1.25 Gbit/s data OOK modulated onto a 60 GHz carrier, similar to that used in the IEEE 802.15.3c draft standard, over fiber lengths up to 62 km.     

A divided spectrum balanced detection technique for intensity noise reduction in SAC OCDMA systems

In this paper we propose a simple divided spectrum balanced detection (DSBD) for spectral amplitude coding (SAC) optical code division multiple access (OCDMA) systems. SAC OCDMA systems are limited by phase induced intensity noise (PIIN), which is a signal dependent source of noise. Our proposed technique reduces the PIIN by dividing the spectrum of the signal into two or more, and detecting each spectrum by a different photodiode. The DSBD scheme reduces the detected optical power at photodetection, thus resulting in a higher mitigation of the PIIN. Theoretical results show that DSBD demonstrate noticeable improvement over traditional balanced detection technique, for example an up to 33% increase in the number of active users can be achieved, and at least 1 × 10⁻³ b/s Hz increase in the spectral efficiency is obtained. However, the SDBD is more complex and append more constrains on system components.     

The improvement of Nyquist pulse shaping for all-optical OFDM system in multi-users network

The all-optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing has a better spectral efficiency and a lower response requirement of modulators for high capacity transmission. In the system, the optical filter will degrade the performance of subcarriers which are far away from the center carrier. We proposed an improvement method of all-optical OFDM scheme using Nyquist pulse shape in the pulse source generator. Comparing a Nyquist shape pulse with a Gauss pulse in a 4 × 100 Gb/s DP-QPSK all-optical sampling OFDM system, the side lobe of transmitted spectrum can be effective suppressed, and the optical power will be more focused on the effective frequency band. By coherent receiver, the results show that the Nyquist pulse shaping can improve the OSNR and transmission performance of subcarriers which deviate mostly from the center frequency of optical filter. This improvement is of great benefit for multi-users system.     

EAM-SOA millimeter-wave frequency up-converter for radio-over-fiber applications

We present an optical scheme for photonic frequency up-conversion at the millimeter-wave bands based on Semiconductor Optical Amplifier. The proposed scheme modulates the bias current with the Intermediate Frequency in order to achieve frequency mixing of an incoming optical signal modulated with the Local Oscillator. Theory indicates that the proposed scheme supports data bandwidths in the tens of GHz for LO values above 10 GHz. This scheme allows for photonic integration of the considered optical devices. A laboratory demonstration of the scheme for up-conversion to the 40 GHz band, using narrow-band IF signals, showed relatively low thresholds for the optical input power and bias current level to achieve error free operation: − 14.5 dBm 100 mA for a 64-QAM signal. Spurious-Free Dynamic Range showed an acceptable performance, with a linearity about 52.5 dB·Hz^2/3 for an optical input power of − 6 dBm.     

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.     

Narrow band optical filter in fluorescein doped boric acid glass saturable absorber thin films

We demonstrate narrow band optical filter like frequency response with full width half maximum (FWHM) of nearly (1.75 ± 0.25) Hz in fluorescein doped boric acid glass films [10⁻⁴ M], using modulated optical phase conjugation and a nearly non-degenerate four wave mixing technique. Modulated optical phase conjugation signals are described in the limit of a weak probe and relatively strong pump beams. Both pump beams are of nearly equal intensity at a wavelength of 514.5 nm from a continuous-wave Ar⁺ laser. The probe beam frequency has been detuned with a ramp signal using a piezo electric mirror.     

Improved frequency response measurement method of half-wave voltage for phase modulator

In this paper, the improvement method of the traditional optical spectrum analyzer (OSA) is demonstrated to measure the half-wave voltage of LiNbO₃ phase modulator with low RF driving. Based on calculating the measured powers ratio of the carrier and first-order side band with optical spectrum analyzer (OSA), the phase modulation index is between 0.5 and 1.43 and the voltage of driving signal is lower than 0.796 V, the accurate characterization of the phase modulator is obtained. By using this method, the half-wave voltage of a LiNbO₃ phase modulator had been measured in the frequency range of 26 GHz. And, our experimental results showed a good agreement between the measured data and those provided by the manufacturer in 9 GHz frequency range. It is an accurate and easy method to measure the half-wave voltages of a phase modulators, especially for measuring high the frequency response.     

Optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexed transmission using all‐optical discrete Fourier transform

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) can provide spectrally efficient communication channels because it can utilize carrier orthogonality and various impairment mitigation methods. An optical OFDM signal can be generated electronically to multiplex lower‐rate carriers. In recent advancements, OFDM signals are also shown to be generated and demultiplexed by all‐optical discrete Fourier transform (DFT), overcoming the speed limit of electronics for >Tbps capacity. High‐performance DFT devices, such as arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) or planar lightwave circuit (PLC), are critically required to obtain strong orthogonality for scalable all‐optical OFDM (AO‐OFDM) system implementations. Advanced techniques such as coherent modulation and detection with digital impairment mitigation are also important for long‐reach AO‐OFDM transmissions. More recently, optical superchannel schemes have been introduced utilizing coherent detection for multi‐Tbps AO‐OFDM transmissions. This paper reviews the device and system aspects for the AO‐OFDM technology, including a generalized theoretical model to provide an indepth understanding.