Reconfigurable photonic temporal differentiator based on a dual-drive Mach-Zehnder modulator

Abstract

We propose and demonstrate a reconfigurable photonic temporal differentiator based on a dual drive Mach-Zehnder modulator (DDMZM). The differentiator can be reconfigured to different differentiation types by simply adjusting the bias voltage of DDMZM. Both simulations and experiments are carried out to verify the proposed scheme. In the experiment, a pair of polarity-reversed field differentiation and a pair of polarity-reversed intensity differentiation are successfully generated. The differentiation accuracy and conversion efficiency versus the time delay are also investigated.

Reconfigurable broadband microwave photonic intensity differentiator based on an integrated optical frequency comb source

“…[8][9][10] To implement photonic differentiators, a number of schemes have been proposed, which can be classified into two categories, namely, field differentiators and intensity differentiators. 11 Field differentiators based on apodized fibre Bragg gratings 8,10,12 and integrated silicon photonic devices [13][14][15][16][17] have recently been demonstrated. These types of devices yield the derivative of a complex optical field and have the ability to shape ultra-short optical pulses that could find applications in optical pulse generation and advanced coding.…”

RF and microwave fractional differentiation with transversal filters using a soliton crystal microcomb multiwavelength source

“…Many photonic based approaches for both integral and non-integral differentiation have focused on producing the RF and microwave fractional differentiation with transversal filters using a soliton crystal microcomb multiwavelength source derivative of the complex optical field, rather than the pure RF differentiation. A photonic differentiator based on a dual-drive Mach-Zehnder modulator together with an RF delay line was recently reported [12] that, although successful, was intrinsically limited in processing speed by the operational bandwidth of the RF delay line. RF differentiators based on optical filters (OFs) have also been reported [13] that feature high processing speeds of up to 40-Gb/s, although this approach works only for a fixed (and typically integral) differentiation order and lacks reconfigurability.…”

Chip-Scale Microwave Photonic Signal Processing

“…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.…”

“…MWP signal processing is of great importance among these applications. As shown in Figure 1, MWP signal processing functionalities include microwave signaling [53,54], filtering [42,43,47], differential [48][49][50], integral [55,56], pulse shaping [57,58], Hilbert transformation [59], arbitrary waveform generation [60][61][62][63], frequency multiplication [64,65], beamforming [66,67], and more.…”

“…Adopting integrated photonics technologies in MWP signal processing will address the issues such as stability and compactness in traditional fiber-based devices. Very recently, owning to the advance on silicon photonics, some microwave photonic devices such as MWP filters [41,43,47,68], on-chip pulse shapers [57,58], differentiators [48][49][50], and Hilbert convertors [59], and ultra wide band (UWB) signal generators [69] have been implemented on silicon on insulator (SOI) platforms. Figure 2 shows the basic schematic illustration of microwave photonic signal processing using a silicon chip.…”