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.     

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.     

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.     

A filterless optical millimeter-wave generation based on frequency octupling

A novel method of a filterless optical millimeter-wave (MMW) signal generation with frequency octupling using four nested Mach–Zehnder modulators (MZMs) is proposed for Radio-over-fiber systems. By symmetrically biasing the MZMs and using two RF driving signals with 90 deg phase delay, a cost-effective, high-quality and filterless optical millimeter-wave at 80 GHz with an optical harmonic distortion suppression ratio exceeding 40 dB is obtained. The proposed system is insensitive to the MZM bias drift, which demonstrates a relatively higher stability. So it is a viable solution for the future ultra-high frequency MMW applications.     

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.     

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.     

A novel optical SSB modulation scheme with interfering harmonics suppressed for ROF transmission link

A novel optical SSB modulation scheme for ROF transmission link is proposed in this paper, the scheme employs two parallel MZMs to generate an SSB signal with major high-order interfering harmonics well suppressed. The SSB signal generated by conventional modulation scheme is interfered by adjacent high-order harmonics, and such interference may cause distortion on the RF signal generated at the base station (BS). As major high-order interfering harmonics are well suppressed in the proposed scheme, the power of the generated RF signal can be avoided and the transmission performance of the ROF transmission link is largely improved.     

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 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.     

Optical frequency comb generation based on three parallel Mach–Zehnder modulators with recirculating frequency shifting loop

We theoretically and numerically study an approach for optical frequency comb (OFC) generation, by utilizing recirculating frequency shifting (RFS) loop based on three parallel Mach–Zehnder modulators (MZMs). Our results show that three parallel MZMs can generate a single-side-band (SSB) signal with 36 dB optical carrier suppression (OCS) ratio. Furthermore, the 60-tone OFC signal with 30 dB side-mode suppression ratio (SMSR) and 4 dB maximum power fluctuation is achieved, and 20 of the OFC signal possess the power fluctuation of less than 1 dB. Our approach provides a novel way of generating OFC with excellent SMSR and good power fluctuation.     

High flatness optical frequency comb generator based on the chirping of modulators

A novel scheme for generation of an optical frequency comb (OFC) based on the chirping of two cascaded modulators is proposed. The first modulator is a dual-electrode Mach–Zehnder modulator (MZM), while the other modulator is an integrated MZM composed of two parallel MZMs that increases the number of comb lines. Our modified scheme can generate a large number of frequency lines with excellent flatness by simply modifying the chirp factor, and it is shown that up to 54 frequency lines could be observed. Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that under the variety of conditions that can be used in this scheme, the power fluctuations of the OFC lines are less than 0.5 dB in all cases; these results demonstrate the robustness of our scheme and verify its good accuracy and high stability with perfect flatness. Additionally, our modified scheme has the merit of tunable frequency spacing, which is practical for experimental realization of the OFC.     

光的单边带传输的性能研究

对一种光单边带传输系统用MATLAB进行了仿真,结果表明：在完全消光条件下,10Gb/s单边带信号在常规单模光纤传输可达140 km, 而双边带仅为70 km;消光比对双边带传输和单边带传输的影响是不一样的. 双边带传输消光比为10 dB就够了, 单边带传输消光比要在20 dB以上,只有消光比大于20 dB时单边带传输相对于双边带传输的优越性才逐渐呈现出来.     

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.     

Quadruple-frequency millimeter-wave generation using second-order rational harmonic mode-locking technique

A novel method for generating quadruple-frequency millimeter-wave （MMW） by using an actively mode-locked fiber ring laser is proposed and demonstrated. In this approach, the optical Mach-Zehnder intensity modulator （MZM） is biased to suppress the odd-order optical sidebands, the fiber laser operates in the second-order rational harmonic mode, and a fiber Bragg grating （FBG） notch filter is used to block the optical carrier. When the MZM is driven by a fixed radio-frequency （RF） source of 10 GHz, a stable MMW signal of 40 GHz with the phase noise better than -76 dBc/Hz at 1-kHz offset is generated.     

Characterization of Rayleigh backscattering performance of CS-SSB signal in carrier distributed passive optical network

Rayleigh backscattering (RB) is an intrinsic phenomenon when light propagating in fiber and its level is fixed by the fiber type and the network configuration used. Thus, RB noise would be one of the major impairments in a carrier distributed passive optical network (PON). Previously demonstrated carrier suppressed subcarrier-amplitude modulated phase shift keying (CSS-AMPSK) modulation may be useful to effectively mitigate the RB noise. However, this modulation is basically a carrier suppressed double sidebands modulation (CS-DSB) format, in which the same information is carried by the two sidebands with equal magnitude. This is not very power-efficient for PON. Here, we further extend our RB studies by using carrier suppressed single sideband non-return-to-zero (CS-SSB-NRZ) modulation. We experimentally characterize the CS-SSB-NRZ modulation when subjected to both contributions of RB: Carrier-RB and Signal-RB. Then, numerical simulations are performed, and the results are in good match with the experiment. Finally, upstream transmission experiment is performed showing the feasibility of using the CS-SSB-NRZ signal for the carrier distributed PON. The RB performance of the SSB-NRZ signals transmitted at different distances and driven at different radio-frequency (RF) f_s is also investigated.     

无滤波高倍频光载毫米波生成技术

提出了一种无滤波的高倍频光载毫米波生成方案.该方案未使用相关的光/电滤波器就可16倍频的毫米波信号.整个系统采用三平行的马赫-曾德尔调制器结构和单个马赫-曾德尔调制器级联,通过调整系统的参数可以很好地抑制所有冗余光边带,只留下高质量的8阶光边带,无需任何光/电滤波器就能够得到16倍频的高质量毫米波信号.另外,详细分析了系统的工作原理,并通过仿真验证了调制深度、消光比、移相器偏移以及调制器偏压对系统的影响.研究结果表明将2 Gbit/s的非归零码型数据与10 GHz的射频信号混频后作为马赫-曾德尔调制器的驱动信号,系统经过50 km光纤传输后的链路功率代价为1.0 dB,具有良好的传输性能.该方案对于无滤波的高倍频毫米波生成有一定的参考价值.     

Generation of radio signals using a novel Mach-Zehnder modulator with four arms

We have proposed and demonstrated a novel Mach-Zehnder modulation technique which employs a 1 × 4 multimode interference MMI coupler and four optical phase-modulator waveguides to generate optical single sideband (SSB) signals in radio-over-fiber (ROF) transmission link. It is shown that when the RF (radio frequency) modulation index is large, the optical SSB signal generated by conventional modulation scheme contains a significant part of undesired higher order harmonics, accordingly, much distortion in the RF signal was detected at the base station (BS). However, the main undesired higher order harmonics can be suppressed using our proposed modulation scheme and the performance of the transmission links were largely improved in single-channel and dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) cases.     

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.     

新型四倍频光生毫米波矢量信号调制技术

提出一种基于双并联马赫-曾德尔调制器(MZM)的新型四倍频光生毫米波技术,并用于矢量信号调制。传统的四倍频调制技术,由于数据信号同时调制到+2,-2阶边带上,拍频检测后两个边带上数据信号会产生相位叠加,只适用于不归零码(NRZ)等强度调制格式。提出的矢量信号调制技术将数据信号调制在一个-1阶边带上,另一个+3阶边带不携带数据,在拍频检测后幅度和相位信息被正确保留。同时,四倍频模块降低了传输过程中对电和光器件的带宽需求。理论分析和仿真结果表明,通过此方法产生的携带在60GHz载波上的6.25×108 symbol/s的四相相移键控(QPSK)信号,经过20km单模光纤传输后,误差向量幅度(EVM)损耗可以忽略。     

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.