High-power optical millimeter-wave signal generation with tunable frequency multiplication factor

This work demonstrates a simple and novel scheme for millimeter-wave (MMW) signal generation using optical multi-sidebands (OMSB) modulation. In the proposed methods, several pairs of optical sidebands can be generated by employing parallel phase modulators driven by a low frequency radio frequency (RF) signal. The optical sidebands will beat at a photodetector (PD) to generate high frequency MMW signal with tunable frequency multiplication factor, such as frequency octupling, 12-tupling, 16-tupling and 18-tupling. Since no optical filters or DC bias are used, the MMW signal has the evident character of high-power output. A generalized analytic expression and simulation verification for generating the frequency multi-tupling MMW signal are developed. The influences caused by non-ideal factors are discussed in detail, and undesired power ratios versus non-ideal factors are plotted and analyzed.