Photonic microwave waveforms generation based on time-domain processing

Abstract

A new photonic approach of microwave waveform generator based on time-domain synthesis is proposed and experimentally demonstrated, in which two single-drive Mach-Zehnder modulators biased at quadrature point are severed as optical pulse carvers and various microwave waveforms can be generated by carving and overlapping optical field envelopes. The theoretical analysis and simulation are developed. In experiment, a square waveform with 50% duty cycle, triangular waveform with full duty cycle, and sawtooth (or reversed-sawtooth) waveform with 50% duty cycle are generated. Furthermore, a frequency doubling sawtooth (or reversed-sawtooth) waveform with full duty cycle is also obtained.