Abstract
Ultrabroadband millimeter-wave and subterahertz waveforms offer significant potential, from ultrahigh-speed communications to high-resolution radar. Electronic generation of broadband arbitrary waveforms at these frequencies suffers from limited digital-to-analog converter speed and high timing jitter. Photonic-assisted techniques, such as those based on optical shaping and frequency-to-time mapping, can overcome these difficulties. Nevertheless, previous photonic arbitrary waveform generation demonstrations are confined to microwave and low millimeter-wave frequencies due to limited optical-to-electrical conversion bandwidth. Here, by utilizing cutting-edge photodetector technology, we report the first generation, wireless transmission, and measurement of substantially complex and highly stable arbitrary waveforms in the W-band (75–110 GHz). These waveforms exhibit high time-bandwidth products up to 600, arbitrarily extendable repetition periods, and phase-noise performance substantially better than state-of-the-art electronic arbitrary waveform generators. The utility of the generated waveforms is demonstrated in multi-target ranging, where a depth resolution of 3.9 mm, unprecedented in the W-band, is achieved over more than 5 m.
Highlights
The last few decades have witnessed remarkable developments in millimeter-wave (MMW) and subterahertz technology
Developments in robust optical arbitrary waveform generation (OAWG) techniques [24,25] have paved the way for versatile radio-frequency arbitrary waveform generation (RF-AWG) both at baseband frequencies [26,27,28,29,30] and at frequencies extending to the low MMW region [31,32]
Most of these schemes rely on optical pulse shaping [33] followed by frequency-to-time mapping (FTM) through chromatic dispersion to generate a wide variety of complex RF waveforms with instantaneous bandwidths well beyond electronics limits
Summary
Cost-effective and low propagation loss radio-over-fiber signal distribution, and the possibility of on-chip integration [20,21]. Developments in robust optical arbitrary waveform generation (OAWG) techniques [24,25] have paved the way for versatile radio-frequency arbitrary waveform generation (RF-AWG) both at baseband frequencies [26,27,28,29,30] and at frequencies extending to the low MMW region [31,32] Most of these schemes rely on optical pulse shaping [33] followed by frequency-to-time mapping (FTM) through chromatic dispersion to generate a wide variety of complex RF waveforms with instantaneous bandwidths well beyond electronics limits. As an application example, we demonstrate high-resolution ranging experiments that achieve range resolution down to 3.9 mm with the potential for an arbitrarily long unambiguous multi-target detection range, here demonstrated to over 5 m (10 m round-trip)
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