Open AccessA Simple Technique for Triangular Waveform Generation Based on a Dual-Polarization Modulator
Author(s) -
Chirappanath B. Albert,
Chongjia Huang,
Erwin H. W. Chan
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
ieee photonics journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.725
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1943-0655
pISSN - 1943-0647
DOI - 10.1109/jphot.2018.2844778
Subject(s) - engineered materials, dielectrics and plasmas , photonics and electrooptics
A new microwave photonic topology for generating a triangular waveform is presented. The concept is based on incoherent summation of two intensity modulated optical signals to generate the first- and third-order harmonic frequency components with the same amplitude and phase as that of an ideal triangular waveform. The proposed triangular waveform generator has a very simple and low-cost structure as it only requires the Mach Zehnder modulator in a conventional fiber optic link to be replaced by an integrated dual-polarization modulator driven by two 90° phase difference RF signals. It also has a widely tunable repetition rate, low insertion loss, and a stable performance. Experimental results demonstrate a triangular waveform with a tunable microwave-frequency repetition rate and a root mean square error value of <;0.049 when comparing with an ideal triangular waveform. The stability of the proposed triangular waveform generator is also examined experimentally.