Photonic low phase-noise frequency-doubling signal generation based on optoelectronic oscillator

Abstract

A kind of photonic low phase-noise frequency-doubling signal generation based on an optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) is demonstrated in this paper. A microwave source drive signal is modulated on the optical signal with the first Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) which is biased at the minimum transmission point (MITP) to eliminate the first-order sidebands and suppress even-order sidebands. The modulated optical signal is sent to the second MZM and the multimode OEO loop which is contributed by the single mode fiber (SMF), photo-detector (PD) and RF amplifier. The frequency-doubling signal is generated by the beating of the two sidebands at a PD. Using the high Q optical comb frequency response to select the oscillation mode of the multimode OEO loop, the system can effectively improve the phase noise performance of the generated frequency-doubling signal. In the experiment, C-band and X-band signal can implement frequency doubling, compared with the microwave drive signal, above 20dB phase-noise reduction at 10kHz frequency offset from the center frequency is realized. With low cost and simple system, frequency-doubling signal with low phase-noise is realized.