Generation of Widely Tunable Narrow-Linewidth Photonic Microwave Signals Based on an Optoelectronic Oscillator Using an Optically Injected Semiconductor Laser as the Active Tunable Microwave Photonic Filter

• Published in: IEEE photonics journal Vol. 10; no. 6; pp. 1 - 9
• Main Authors: Lin, Xiao-Dong, Wu, Zheng-Mao, Deng, Tao, Tang, Xi, Fan, Li, Gao, Zi-Ye, Xia, Guang-Qiong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 01.12.2018; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Control theory; distributed feedback semiconductor laser (DFB-SL); Feedback loops; Lasers; linewidth; Masers; Microwave filters; Microwave oscillators; microwave photonic filter (MPF); Microwave photonics; Optical attenuators; Optical feedback; Optical filters; optical injection; optoelectronic oscillator (OEO); Optoelectronics; phase variance; Photonic microwave; Tunable lasers
• ISSN: 1943-0655; 1943-0647
• DOI: 10.1109/JPHOT.2018.2878781

In this work, a novel optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) structure is proposed for generating widely tunable photonic microwave. In this structure, an optical injection semiconductor laser (OISL) functions as an active tunable microwave photonic filter (MPF). Through controlling the injection power and frequency detuning, the OISL is driven into period-one dynamics whose oscillation frequency can be widely tuned from 10.43 to 65.82 GHz. As a result, the OISL can be regarded as a widely tunable active MPF. By introducing an optical feedback loop, the filtered bandwidth of the widely tunable active MPF can be further reduced. Taking the OISL under optical feedback as a widely tunable narrow-bandwidth MPF and a seeding laser source to establish an OEO structure, widely tunable narrow-linewidth photonic microwave can be generated. The experimental results demonstrate that widely tunable photonic microwaves ranging from 10.43 to 39.10 GHz with linewidths below 0.1 MHz and phase variances below 10 -2 (rad 2 ) can be achieved.