Photonic Mixer Incorporating All-Optical Microwave Frequency Generator Based on Stimulated Brillouin Scattering Using Single Laser Source

• Main Authors: Mohamed Alom, Shyqyri Haxha, Amar Aggoun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2020-01-01
• Series: IEEE Access
• Subjects: Radio-over-fiber (RoF); stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS); dual parallel Mach Zehnder modulator (DPMZM); Brillouin selective sideband amplification (BSSA); carrier suppressed single side band (CS-SSB)
• Online Access: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9006890/

In this paper, we report the theoretical and experimental implementation of a photonic mixer for Radio-Over-Fiber (RoF) transmission systems, which incorporates an all-optical 10.87 GHz microwave frequency signal generator based on beating laser frequency with its first order Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) frequency shift. A 13GHz Radio Frequency (RF) is down-converted to 2.13 GHz Intermediate Frequency (IF) signal. The proposed system configuration represents a cost-effective photonic mixer that can be deployed for up and down conversion around 11 GHz in RoF transmission systems. The optically generated microwave signal of 10.87 GHz has a phase noise of -109 dBc/Hz at 15-MHz offset. The proposed photonic mixer exhibits a Spurious-Free Dynamic Range (SFDR) of 93dB.Hz ^2/3. This RoF transmission system configuration deploys dual parallel Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) Mach Zehnder Modulator as a photonic mixer, and a single laser source as a Brillouin pump and as an optical carrier at the same time. To the best of our knowledge, this type of photonic mixers has not been reported in the literature.