A novel reconfigurable ultra-broadband millimeter-wave photonic harmonic down-converter

We propose a novel ultra-broadband reconfigurable photonic harmonic mixer functioning as a millimeter-wave down-converter for multigigabit wireless applications. Based on frequency conversion implemented by an optical frequency comb generator, the photonic mixer is able to operate up to 100GHz without high frequency RF components. The feasibility of the approach is experimentally validated by down-converting an up to 5Gbps fiber-wireless quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) signal from W-band (102.5GHz) to S-band (2.5GHz). The frequency response and the conversion efficiency are investigated. The experimental results show that the bandwidth of the proposed mixer is highly reconfigurable by adjusting the frequency comb generator.