System and method for high performance photonic down-conversion of microwave signals
US10418943B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | Oct 10, 2018 |
| Grant date | Sep 17, 2019 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Oct 10, 2038 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04B2210/006
- WIPO fieldTelecommunications
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A method for down-converting an RF signal is described that optically phase modulates an RF signal onto an optical carrier then applies an RF local oscillator (LO) phase modulation which down-converts the RF signal to an intermediate frequency after appropriate optical signal processing and optical-to-electrical photo-detection. The LO phase modulator is constructed such that a common hot electrode is shared among more than one optical mode, where an optical mode can be separate waveguides or optical wavelengths. The relative phase of the LO frequency applied to each optical mode can be different between the different optical modes. The resulting down-converted photo-detected signals of different LO-phase can be processed to reduce noise. A single LO phase modulator can down-convert multiple RF signals carried by multiple optical wavelengths, and a harmonic generation stage with multi-phase-matching peaks can be used to linearize each RF signal.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.