Photonic Generation of Few-Cycle Millimeter-Wave Pulse Using a Waveguide-Based Photonic-Transmitter-Mixer

We demonstrate a novel technique for photonic generation of few-cycle millimeter-wave (MMW) pulse using a WR-10 waveguide and near-ballistic unitraveling carrier photodiode (NBUTC-PD)-based photonic-transmitter-mixer (PTM). A 2.5-cycle MMW pulse is generated by simultaneously exciting the PTM optical port with ~100-GHz optical MMW sinusoidal signal and the intermediate-frequency (IF) port with a 25-ps electrical short pulse, respectively. Compared to results using femtosecond optical short pulses to directly excite the PTM (without E-O signal mixing), our approach is capable of providing much less signal distortion, eliminating the ringing oscillation in the tail of response, a much shorter pulse duration, and a higher peak power.