Photonic microwave downconverter based on an optoelectronic oscillator using a single dual-drive Mach-Zehnder modulator

A novel and compact photonic microwave downconverter is proposed and experimentally demonstrated based on an optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) using a single dual-drive Mach-Zehnder modulator (DMZM). The DMZM is used to simultaneously convert the input RF signal into an optical signal, form an OEO for RF carrier extraction, and downconvert the optical RF signal to the baseband. In the experiment, a 2-Gb/s NRZ coded 10.66-GHz RF signal is successfully downconverted to the baseband. In addition, a microwave receiver for wireless high-definition (HD) video transmission is built and verified based on the proposed downconverter. The experiment results confirm that the proposed downconverter has simple configuration, good downconversion performance and very stable operation.