Filterless 16-tupling photonic millimeter-wave generation with Mach–Zehnder modulators using remodulation

An optical millimeter-wave generation technique is presented in this paper. The system’s two frequency quadruplers use dual-parallel Mach–Zehnder modulators. A 5 GHz radio frequency signal is fed to a quadrupler, which yields a 20 GHz signal after detection using a photodiode. The detected signal is used for remodulation of the other quadrupler, resulting in an 80 GHz signal with an optical sideband suppression ratio of 28 dB and a radio frequency spurious sideband suppression ratio of 27 dB. Further, the effect on the system performance in terms of the optical sideband suppression ratio and radio frequency spurious sideband suppression ratio with variation of various parameters is also evaluated. The optical sideband suppression ratio is well above 14 dB for a phase offset of ± 9 ∘ in phase shifters with a modulation index range of 1.5–3.5 and an amplifier gain range of 25 dB to 32 dB.