A Novel Frequency Double Millimeter Wave Signal Generation Scheme with Optical Carrier Suppression Based on a Single Polarization Modulator

Abstract

In the work, a novel and simple double frequency millimeter wave (mm-wave) signal generation scheme with optical carrier suppression (OCS) enabled by a single polarization modulator is proposed. The scheme is a simple structure to achieve the mm-wave signal generation, and the core of which just depend on a polarization modulator and two linear polarizers, and electronic circuits is needless to control the drift of modulator bias points and no optical filters is needed to filter out undesirable harmonics. The polarization angle of the first linear polarizer (POL-1) is set to 45°, the polarization angle of the second linear polarizer (POL-2) is set to −45° to suppress even order optical sidebands, and the modulation index of polarization modulator (POLM) is adjusted to realize small signal modulation. Based on mathematical reasoning and computer simulation, the proposed scheme is well feasible. Simulation results show that using 20 GHz RF signal to drive the POLM, 40 GHz mm-wave signal with 47 dB optical sideband suppression ratio (OSSR) and 41.19 dB radio frequency sideband suppression ratio (RFSSR) was obtained.