A Photonic UWB Generator Reconfigurable for Multiple Modulation Formats

Author

Pan, Shilong ; Yao, Jianping

Author_Institution

Microwave Photonics Res. Lab., Univ. of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

Volume

21

Issue

19

fYear

2009

Firstpage

1381

Lastpage

1383

Abstract

In this letter, we propose and demonstrate a simple and flexible optical ultra-wideband (UWB) pulse generator that can be reconfigured for pulse-position modulation, biphase modulation, and pulse-shape modulation. The system is implemented using a dual-drive Mach-Zehnder modulator and an electrically reconfigurable asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer (AMZI). The AMZI consists of a polarization modulator (PolM), a polarization controller (PC), a section of polarization-maintaining fiber, and an optical polarizer. By adjusting the PC and the drive voltage to the PolM, the system is reconfigured to generate UWB signals with different modulation formats. An experiment is performed, which verifies the proposed technique.

Keywords

Mach-Zehnder interferometers; electro-optical devices; microwave photonics; optical communication equipment; optical fibre polarisation; optical modulation; optical polarisers; optical pulse generation; radio-over-fibre; ultra wideband communication; AMZI; UWB; asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer; biphase modulation; dual-drive Mach-Zehnder modulator; optical ultrawideband pulse generator; polarization controller; polarization modulator; polarization-maintaining fiber; pulse-position modulation; pulse-shape modulation; Biphase modulation (BPM); polarization modulator (PolM); pulse-position modulation (PPM); pulse-shape modulation (PSM); ultra-wideband (UWB);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2009.2027218

Filename

5170077