Broadband photonic microwave signal processor with frequency up/down conversion and tunable OEO

Abstract

A broadband photonic microwave signal processor based on integrated dual-polarization dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder modulator (DP-DPMZM) is proposed. The processor has a tunable local oscillator (LO) signal, which is generated by the optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) loop in one of the sub-DPMZM with high spectral purity and low phase noise, and its center frequency can be tuned by electronic band-pass filter (EBPF). Using the bias voltage of DP-DPMZM and fiber Bragg grating, the carrier-suppressed single-sideband (CS-SSB) modulation of LO and RF signals can be realized, and the up or down conversion of frequency converter can be realized by adjusting the single bias voltage of DP-DPMZM. Moreover, the power fading caused by dispersion is well compensated with the SSB modulation. The experimental results show that the tunable LO signal of 6-20 GHz is successfully generated, the side mode rejection ratio is as high as 48.4 dB, and the 10 kHz phase noise is 107.6 dBc/Hz at 8 GHz. The spurious rejection ratio of up-down conversion signal is 31.4 dB and 33.6 dB, respectively.