MILLIMETER-WAVE SIGNAL GENERATION UTILIZING OPTICAL-PHASE MODULATION AND BRILLOUIN SPECTRAL LINES SUPPRESSION

A novel photonic technique to generate millimeter-wave signal is presented. By utilizing an optical phase modulator driven by a 10 GHz electrical signal. high-order modulation sidebands are generated on an optical carrier. In addition a multiwavelength Brillouin fiber laser (BFL) configuration acted as multitap notch filter, is used to eliminate unwanted modulation sidebands and keep desired harmonic components. Unlike convnetional Brillouin selective sideband amplification or other filtering technology, this technique require neither more external sources to provide Stokes waves not wavelength matching between light source and filters. The output of the system is dominated by two high-order sidebands in the optical domain, separated by desired harmonic of the modulation frequency. Signal multiplication is simulated and experimentally demonstrated. The operation range is only limited by the amount of phase shift achieved in the phase modulator. (C) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 51: 1683-1685, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.24408