Generation of short microwave pulse trains based on a hybrid mode-locked optoelectronic oscillator

A novel approach, to the best of our knowledge, for generating short microwave pulse trains based on a hybrid mode-locked optoelectronic oscillator (HML-OEO) is proposed and demonstrated. In the proposed scheme, a saturable absorber (SA) device is inserted into the active mode-locked OEO (AML-OEO) to compress the pulse width of the microwave pulse trains. Numerical simulations and experimental results show that the HML-OEO generates a short microwave pulse train with a repetition rate of 98.994 kHz through fundamental frequency mode locking, and its pulse width is compressed by about 50% compared to the AML-OEO. Additionally, in the experiment, microwave pulse trains with different repetition rates are generated by second-, third-, fourth-, and fifth-order harmonic mode locking, respectively. Compared to the AML-OEO, the HML-OEO achieves pulse compression effects of 49.3%, 49.8%, 49.4%, and 49.9%, respectively. Notably, compared to the AML-OEO, the proposed scheme also exhibits outstanding performance in frequency stability.