Photonic Generation of M-QAM/M-ASK Signals at Microwave/Millimeter-Wave Band Using Dual-Drive Mach–Zehnder Modulators With Unequal Amplitudes

Author

Zhang, Ye ; Xu, Kun ; Zhu, Ran ; Li, Jianqiang ; Wu, Jian ; Hong, Xiaobin ; Lin, Jintong

Author_Institution

Key Lab. of Opt. Commun. & Lightwave Technol., Beijing Univ. of Posts & Telecommun., Beijing

Volume

26

Issue

15

fYear

2008

Firstpage

2604

Lastpage

2610

Abstract

Based on photonic vector modulation (PVM) techniques, several novel schemes are proposed to generate 4-ary amplitude shift keying (4-ASK), 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (16-QAM), and 16-ary amplitude shift keying (16-ASK) signals at microwave/millimeter-wave (mm-wave) band. First, a 4-ASK signal generation architecture based on dual-drive Mach-Zehnder modulators (MZMs) with unequal amplitudes is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Then by combining two 4-ASK signal generation schemes in parallel, PVM architectures for 16-QAM and 16-ASK signal generation are proposed employing three MZMs, a tunable optical delay line (ODL), and an optical attenuator. The detailed theoretical analysis, experiment, and simulation certification of these structures are carried out. Compared with the conventional methods, the electronic driven circuits in the proposed schemes are simplified by employing PVM techniques.

Keywords

amplitude shift keying; microwave photonics; optical communication equipment; optical delay lines; optical fibre networks; quadrature amplitude modulation; radio-over-fibre; vectors; 16-ary amplitude shift keying; 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation; 4-ary amplitude shift keying; M-ASK signal generation; M-QAM signal generation; dual-drive Mach-Zehnder modulator; electronic driven circuits; optical attenuator; photonic generation; photonic vector modulation; radio-over-fiber; tunable optical delay line; Amplitude modulation; Amplitude shift keying; Microwave generation; Microwave theory and techniques; Millimeter wave technology; Optical attenuators; Optical modulation; Quadrature amplitude modulation; Signal generators; Tunable circuits and devices; Amplitude shift keying (ASK); Mach–Zehnder modulator (MZM); photonic vector modulation (PVM); quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM); radio-over-fiber (RoF);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Lightwave Technology, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0733-8724

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JLT.2008.927597

Filename

4652317