An integrated microwave photonic mixer based on silicon photonic platforms is proposed,which consist of a dual-drive Mach–Zehnder modulator and a balanced photodetector.The modulated optical signals from microwave ph...An integrated microwave photonic mixer based on silicon photonic platforms is proposed,which consist of a dual-drive Mach–Zehnder modulator and a balanced photodetector.The modulated optical signals from microwave photonic links can be directly demodulated and down-converted to intermediate frequency(IF)signals by the photonic mixer.The converted signal is obtained by conducting of-chip subtraction of the outputs from the balanced photodetector,and subsequent fltering of the high frequency items by an electrical low-pass flter.Benefting from balanced detection,the conversion gain of the IF signal is improved by 6 dB,and radio frequency leakage and common-mode noise are suppressed signifcantly.System-level simulations show that the frequency mixing system has a spurious-free dynamic range of 89 dB·Hz^(2/3),even with deteriorated linearity caused by the two cascaded modulators.The spur suppression ratio of the photonic mixer remains higher than 40 dB when the IF varies from 0.5 to 4 GHz.The electrical-electrical 3 dB bandwidth of frequency conversion is 11 GHz.The integrated frequency mixing approach is quite simple,requiring no extra optical flters or electrical 90°hybrid coupler,which makes the system more stable and with broader bandwidth so that it can meet the potential demand in practical applications.展开更多
基金supported by the Key Research and Development Program of Anhui Province(Nos.2022a05020027 and 202104a05020052)Open Project Program of Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics(No.2020WNL0KF005).
文摘An integrated microwave photonic mixer based on silicon photonic platforms is proposed,which consist of a dual-drive Mach–Zehnder modulator and a balanced photodetector.The modulated optical signals from microwave photonic links can be directly demodulated and down-converted to intermediate frequency(IF)signals by the photonic mixer.The converted signal is obtained by conducting of-chip subtraction of the outputs from the balanced photodetector,and subsequent fltering of the high frequency items by an electrical low-pass flter.Benefting from balanced detection,the conversion gain of the IF signal is improved by 6 dB,and radio frequency leakage and common-mode noise are suppressed signifcantly.System-level simulations show that the frequency mixing system has a spurious-free dynamic range of 89 dB·Hz^(2/3),even with deteriorated linearity caused by the two cascaded modulators.The spur suppression ratio of the photonic mixer remains higher than 40 dB when the IF varies from 0.5 to 4 GHz.The electrical-electrical 3 dB bandwidth of frequency conversion is 11 GHz.The integrated frequency mixing approach is quite simple,requiring no extra optical flters or electrical 90°hybrid coupler,which makes the system more stable and with broader bandwidth so that it can meet the potential demand in practical applications.