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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

A two-stage optical frequency comb generator based on Mach-Zehnder modulator and Re-circulating frequency shifter

We propose a novel scheme to generate optical frequency comb by using a two-stage generator based on Mach-Zehnder modulator and re-circulating frequency shifter. Based on the Mach-Zehnder modulator a light source including 2 flat and stable frequency spectrum lines is generated at the first stage, and the light source is then used as the seed light in the re-circulating frequency shifter loop at the second stage. The scheme can greatly reduce the accumulated noise of the system. Through theoretical analysis and simulation it is shown that the proposed theoretical model of the two-stage system is proved in good agreement with simulation results.     

DSB optical mm-wave with signal only on optical carrier generated by embedded LiNbO3 Mach-Zehnder modulator

We have investigated the generation of the 40-GHz double-sideband optical millimeter (mm)-wave with signal carried only by its optical carrier via an embedded LiNbO₃ Mach-Zehnder modulator (LN-MZM). Since the optical carrier and its two first-order sidebands are dominant and their powers are well balanced, the first-order harmonic in the photocurrent gets maximal. As the optical mm-wave signal is transmitted along the fiber, there is no code outline distortion because the signal is only modulated on the optical carrier. Although the first-order harmonic shows the periodical fading effect when the optical mm-wave signal is transmitted along the fiber, its degradation on the radio-over-fiber link can be avoided by adjusting the position of the fading nodes via varying the main MZM bias voltage, and the signal still keeps much good eye diagram even after 50-km fiber transmission. The experimental results prove our theory.     

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.     

Optical mm-wave generation by using external modulator based on optical carrier suppression

In this paper, we have theoretically investigated the transmission performance of the optical millimeter (mm)-wave generated by using an external modulator based on optical carrier suppression for the first time. According to our theory, the data signals carried by the optical mm-wave are transmitted in the dispersion fiber without fading but are degraded greatly because of the time shift of the code edges, which still limits the transmission distance. The experimental results agree well with our theory.     

High-repetitive frequency millimeter-wave signal generation using multi-cascaded external modulators based on carrier suppression technique

We have numerically and experimentally investigated how to generate high-repetitive frequency millimeter (mm)-wave using multi-cascaded intensity modulators based on optical carrier suppression (OCS) scheme. We have found the rule how to generate the high-repetitive frequency mm-wave by adjusting the repetitive frequency of the radio-frequency (RF) signals and the phase relation between the RF signals on the intensity modulators. Based on this rule, we have experimentally demonstrated to generate over 80 GHz optical mm-wave.     

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.     

无光滤波六倍频微波信号产生的系统设计

基于两个级联偏振调制器,提出了一种高频谱纯度、稳定的六倍频微波信号产生方法。该方法通过适当调整偏振片的偏振方向、射频驱动信号电压和相位,实现无光滤波器条件下、任何波段六倍频微波信号的产生。利用Optisystem平台搭建的仿真系统,以S波段4 GHz信号为例,验证了该设计系统产生的六倍频信号质量,并分析了非理想射频驱动电压和相位对六倍频信号质量的影响,结果表明：该设计系统能产生最大光边带抑制比、射频无杂散抑制比分别为21.3,15.2 dB的六倍频微波信号;且非理想驱动电压和相位差的偏离应控制在理想值5%的范围之内。     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Influence of the modulation index of Mach-Zehnder modulator on RoF link with ASK millimeter-wave signal

In this paper, the influence of the modulation index of LiNbO₃ Mach-Zehnder modulator on the radio over fiber (RoF) link based on single sideband (SSB) optical millimeter (mm)-wave with ASK signal is theoretically and numerically investigated. Our investigation shows that there exists an optimal modulation index to generate the SSB optical mm-wave with a maximal RF photocurrent. Although the fiber dispersion distorts the code form and degrades the performance of the RF signal demodulated from the SSB optical mm-wave after fiber transmission, it does not cause the closure of the eye diagram. However, the influence of the fiber dispersion becomes more obvious as the modulation index increases. For the duplex RoF link with the optical carrier of the uplink recovered from the downlink, a larger modulation index of the downlink causes a worse crosstalk from the downlink to the uplink.     

A novel full-duplex radio-over-fiber system based on dual octupling-frequency for 82 GHz W-band radio frequency and wavelength reuse for uplink connection

A novel full-duplex radio-over-fiber system is proposed and demonstrated, in which an external modulator and an optical interleaver are used to generate dual octupling-frequency optical millimeter waves for two base stations and wavelength reuse for uplink connection. This scheme is simplified and low-cost because no additional laser is utilized for uplink connection at two base stations and one laser at central office works for two base stations simultaneously. The frequency of local oscillator signal is reduced largely due to frequency octupling. The theorem about how to generate optical millimeter waves is analyzed. The simulation results show that the bidirectional 5 Gb/s system has a perfect performance because the power penalty for the downlink and uplink signals of two base stations are less than 0.6 dB after successful transmission over 60 km standard single mode fiber.     

Simulative investigation on the impact of laser-spectral width in single-tone radio-over-fiber transmission system using optical single side-band technique

In this paper, we analyzed the impact of laser-spectral width incorporating dual-electrode Mach–Zehnder modulator (DEMZM) in single-tone radio-over-fiber (RoF) transmission system by simulation setup. It is shown that an improvement in the measurement of received radio frequency (RF) power is achieved by reducing the laser line width from 100 MHz to 100 kHz, which further improves the BER rate and optical link by transmitting the information with low power. The results are calculated for 20 and 50 km optical single sideband (OSSB)–RoF transmission system by varying the chirp from 0 to −3 as it requires less bandwidth than optical dual sideband (ODSB)–RoF system and is tolerable for power degradation due to a chromatic fiber-dispersion, through a standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) carried by a continuous wave (CW) laser at 1550 nm of laser-spectral width varying from 100 MHz to 100 kHz with CW power of 10 mW that modulates a single RF channel of 20 GHz. Further, deployment of such lasers with OSSB scheme helps the telecom industry to reduce the designing cost of RoF communication systems.     

Fully reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer based on parallel configuration using Mach-Zehnder module

Reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) with the ability of dynamic configuration will be one of the core equipment for the future optical transport networks. This paper proposes an effective scheme for fully ROADM with parallel modularized structure and ability of upgrading. Each module consists of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer based on fiber Bragg grating (FBG), a 1 × 2 optical switch and a Y-model combiner. Optical signal with single wavelength or multiwavelength could be dropped or added at one drop port or add port by configuring the optical switch in each module. The proposed ROADM with four-stage parallel connection is designed and experimentally investigated to prove its performance and advantage in dynamic selection of the wavelengths and upgrading. It is also showed that this ROADM can also reduce the ununiformity of power at output port and drop port to improve the optical signal to noise ration (OSNR) of the whole system.