All optical measurement of an unknown wideband microwave frequency

Abstract

AbstractA novel all optical measurement scheme is proposed to measure wideband microwave frequencies up to 30 GHz. The proposed method is based on a four-wave mixing (FWM) approach in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) of both even order side-bands generated by an unknown microwave frequency modulating an optical carrier. The optical power of a generated FWM signal depends on frequency spacing between extracted side-bands. A mathematical relation is established between FWM power and frequency of an unknown signal. A calibration curve is drawn based on the mathematical relation which predicts the unknown frequency from power withdrawn after FWM.