Photonic generation of high frequency millimeter-wave and transmission over optical fiber

A novel technique of photonic generation of millimeter-waves beyond the presently reported 120 GHz and with a wider tunability (∼240 GHz) is proposed and demonstrated through a simulation experiment. The scheme consists of generating 24 times the frequency of a conventional low frequency microwave source using a combination of a LiNbO₃ Mach-Zehnder modulator and four-wave mixing in a semiconductor optical amplifier. The filtering of a high frequency sideband and the suppression of a carrier are achieved by incorporating an optical band pass and fiber Bragg grating filters, respectively. Next, the spectral purity of the generated millimeter-wave parameters is evaluated after propagation through a conventional fiber of different lengths by digitally modulating it at 2.5 Gbps and generating an eye diagram. The constraints on the selection of the frequency of the millimeter-wave and length of fiber are discussed. The present method of millimeter-wave generation and distribution will find applications in photonic up/down conversion, phase-array antennas, photonic sensors, radars, and terahertz applications.