Photonic-assisted microwave signal multiplication and modulation using a silicon Mach–Zehnder modulator

Abstract

Photonic generation of microwave signal is obviously attractive for many prominent advantages, such as large bandwidth, low loss, and immunity to electromagnetic interference. Based on a single integrated silicon Mach–Zehnder modulator (MZM), we propose and experimentally demonstrate a simple and compact photonic scheme to enable frequency-multiplicated microwave signal. Using the fabricated integrated MZM, we also demonstrate the feasibility of microwave amplitude-shift keying (ASK) modulation based on integrated photonic approach. In proof-of-concept experiments, 2-GHz frequency-doubled microwave signal is generated using a 1-GHz driving signal. 750-MHz/1-GHz frequency-tripled/quadrupled microwave signals are obtained with a driving signal of 250 MHz. In addition, a 50-Mb/s binary amplitude coded 1-GHz microwave signal is also successfully generated.

Recent Trends and Advances of Silicon-Based Integrated Microwave Photonics

“…[82]. A simple and effective scheme to obtain frequency multiplied microwave signals and/or amplitude coded microwave signals based on a single integrated silicon Mach Zehnder modulator (MZM) was demonstrated in [83]. Specifically, a 50 Mb/s binary amplitude coded signal was generated in this experiment.…”

On-chip silicon photonic signaling and processing: a review

“…Lasers, modulators and detectors are the main required basic devices for silicon photonic signaling and processing applications. In this section, we review the history and development of silicon based lasers, modulators and detectors [118][119][120][121][122][123][124][125][126][127][128][129][130].…”

“…The performance of silicon-based optical modulators has been improved dramatically in the last decade owing to the significant research efforts from both academic institutions and corporations [122][123][124][125][126]. Table 2 shows a brief summary of siliconbased optical modulators in the last decade.…”

“…The main research topics include on-chip signaling (transceiving, transmission/interconnects) and processing. For on-chip transceiving, a lot of photonic integrated devices providing laser sources, signal modulation and detection have been demonstrated, including lasers [118][119][120][121], modulators [122][123][124][125][126] and detectors [127][128][129][130]. For on-chip signaling or data transmission/interconnects, different kinds of photonic integrated devices have been considered, including strip waveguide [131][132][133], microring [134,135], slot waveguide [136], photonic crystal waveguide [137,138], subwavelength grating waveguide [6,139,140], and hybrid plasmonic waveguide [141][142][143][144][145][146][147].…”

Microwave generation on an optical carrier in microresonator chains

“…The fine tuning techniques available today, see e.g. [45], allow one to well adapt the system to the source frequency instead and compensate for fabrication imperfections; furthermore our approach is more compact than more conventional ones based on non-linear effects in non-resonant configurations [46,47].…”