Photonic generation of microwave frequency shift keying signal using a single-drive Mach–Zehnder modulator

Abstract

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a new scheme for photonic generation of microwave frequency shift keying (FSK) signal by employing one single-drive Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM). In the proposed method, an electrical signal with different radio frequency (RF) amplitudes and direct current (DC) components for bit '0' and bit '1' is generated. After amplification, the signal is fed into a single-drive MZM which is biased at the quadrature and null points of its transmission curve for bit '0' and bit '1', respectively. Due to the different RF amplitudes, a microwave FSK signal can be obtained after photodetection, where the space frequency is the same as the RF frequency and the mark frequency is twice as large as the RF frequency. The feasibility of the proposed scheme is verified by a proof-of-concept experiment. 5/10-GHz and 10/20-GHz microwave FSK signals with different bit rates are successfully demonstrated.

Chip-Scale Microwave Photonic Signal Processing

“…Due to the electronic bottleneck, the major difficulty of this traditional technique is that the frequency of the generated signals is limited to a few gigahertz. An effective method to generate high frequency RF signals is to generate RF signals in the optical domain [38,39,112]. Similar to microwave frequency mulitiplication, the use of MZM is also considered to be a competitive approach to generating binary digital modulation signals.…”

“…Similar to microwave frequency mulitiplication, the use of MZM is also considered to be a competitive approach to generating binary digital modulation signals. Microwave PSK and FSK signals have been proposed and realized based on commercial MZMs [38,39,112]. However, microwave ASK signal as a fundamental digital modulation format in wireless communication has rarely been realized using MZM.…”

“…The initial of MWP was for distributing microwave signal over long distances. However, the applications have evolved dramatically and now include photonic generation of microwave signal [37][38][39][40], photonic processing of microwave signal [41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50], frequency measurement of microwave signal [51,52], and so on. MWP signal processing is of great importance among these applications.…”

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

“…Due to the electronic bottleneck, the major difficulty of this traditional technique is that the frequency of the generated signals is limited to a few GHz. An effective method to generate high frequency RF signals is to generate RF signals in the optical domain 16 17 18 . These approaches are based on spatial light modulator (SLM) technologies or fiber devices.…”

“…Similar to microwave frequency mulitiplication, the use of MZM is also considered to be a competitive approach to generating binary digital modulation signals. Microwave PSK and FSK signals have been proposed and realized based on commercial MZMs 16 17 18 . However, microwave ASK signal as a fundamental digital modulation format in wireless communication has rarely been realized using MZM.…”