Optically controlled multi-carrier phase-shift-keying microwave signal generation by using cross-polarization modulation in highly nonlinear fiber

Abstract

We propose an optically controlled scheme to generate a multi-carrier PSK (phase-shift-keying) signal by using cross-polarization modulation (XPolM) in a highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF). A main advantage of our approach is all-optical multi-carrier PSK signal generation, which is promising for uninterrupted transmission and seamless connection of signal to different remote stations by fiber transmission for multi-band radar. The multi-carrier phase-coding is more resilient to electromagnetic interferences and can enhance the observation capabilities of radars. Thanks to the ultrafast nonlinear response of HNLF, the frequency and bandwidth of the multi-carrier PSK signal generator are widely tunable. The proposal all-optical system is analyzed theoretically and a proof-of-concept experiment is performed.