High power flatness and wide spectrum range microwave frequency combs generation based on an actively mode-locked optoelectronic oscillator with intensity feed-forward path

Abstract

An actively mode-locked optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) with intensity feed-forward path is proposed and experimentally demonstrated to generate microwave frequency combs (MFCs) with high power flatness and wide spectrum range. An intensity feed-forward path with the same time delay as the delay of the main loop is inserted into an actively mode-locked OEO, which optimizes the power flatness and spectrum range of the generated MFCs signal. Experimental results show that comb lines within ± 10 dB power variations increase from 15 to 78 and power difference decreases from 8.2 dB to 1.5 dB when the intensity feed-forward path is working in the loop. Moreover, the performance of single sideband (SSB) phase noise with different lengths of SMF inserted in the proposed scheme are also investigated.