Photonic generation of frequency quadrupling signal for millimeter-wave communication

We propose and demonstrate a photonic method of generating frequency quadrupling signal for millimeter-wave (mm-wave) wireless communication system. The frequency quadrupling scheme is based on carriers cancellation within an integrated dual-parallel Mach–Zehnder modulator (DPMZM), thus avoiding the use of an optical filter or an electrical phase shifter. The effects of modulation-depth on the power level of generated mm-wave signal as well as on the system performance of wireless transmission are analyzed theoretically and measured experimentally. In the experiment, transmission of 155 Mbps OOK baseband data on a photonic-generated 40 GHz mm-wave over a length of 25 km standard single-mode fiber (SMF) and 20 m wireless distance with error free is successfully demonstrated.