Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Optics Communications
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/optcom
art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t
Article history: A polarization multiplexed dual-loop optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) based on stimulated Brillouin
Received 27 July 2016 scattering (SBS) is theoretically analyzed and experimentally demonstrated. The narrow bandwidth of
Received in revised form SBS gain spectrum is utilized to implement the phase modulation to intensity modulation conversion
17 August 2016
and select the oscillation mode of the OEO. The polarization multiplexed dual-loop is constructed to
Accepted 31 August 2016
suppress the side modes with Vernier effect. The output frequency of the OEO can be tuned by changing
Available online 8 September 2016
the frequency of the signal or the pump light wave. With the polarization multiplexed dual-loop the side-
Keywords: mode suppression ratio (SMSR) of 45 dB is achieved at 10 GHz. The generated oscillation frequency is
Optoelectronic oscillator tuned from 4 GHz to 16 GHz by changing the frequency of the signal light wave. The phase noise de-
Stimulated Brillouin scattering
creases with the power increase of the signal light wave when it is under the threshold of SBS. By
Polarization multiplexed dual-loop
adjusting the polarization state of the light wave, the inuence of the power distribution between the
Phase noise
long loop and the short loop on the phase noise of the OEO is investigated. The results show that more
power in the long loop is helpful to suppress the near end phase noise.
& 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.optcom.2016.08.081
0030-4018/& 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
X. Han et al. / Optics Communications 383 (2017) 138143 139
is changed by adjusting the polarization state of the optical signal constructed steadily due to the Vernier effect and the side-modes
into the PBS and its effect on the phase noise improvement of the can be greatly suppressed [15,16].
OEO is investigated. As shown in the spectrum at point in Fig. 2, the output
frequency fosc of the OEO is determined by the frequency de-
ference between the frequency of signal laser and the one of pump
2. Operation principle laser with the relationship of [8]
fosc = fP fB fS (1)
The schematic of the polarization multiplexed dual-loop OEO
based on SBS is shown in Fig. 1. The light wave with the frequency where fB is the Brillouin frequency shift of the HNLF. From Eq. (1) it
of fS from the signal laser is sent to a phase modulator, which is can be seen that the output frequency of the OEO can be tuned by
modulated by the feedback electrical signal. The modulated light changing the frequency of the signal laser or of the pump laser.
wave goes through an isolator (ISO), and into a high nonlinear The Q value is a gure of merit inuencing the phase noise of
ber (HNLF). The pump laser with the frequency of fP is injected in the OEO [1]. For the polarization multiplexed dual-loop OEO, the
the HNLF in the opposite direction through an optical circulator optical power distribution between the short loop and the long
(OC) to provide the SBS gain. The polarization controllers (PC1 and loop can be changed by adjusting polarization direction of un-
PC2) are used to ensure the polarization alignment between the balanced PM signal to the PBS. According to the Q value denition
phase-modulated (PM) optical signal and the pump light wave to of the conventional OEO [1], the Q value of the polarization mul-
obtain the high efciency of SBS. As shown in the spectrum at tiplexed dual-loop OEO can be expressed as
point in Fig. 2, the upper sideband of the PM optical signal is
amplied by the SBS gain, which interrupts the amplitude balance
Q=
(
2fosc L2PL + S 2PS )
of the PM sidebands. The unbalanced PM signal with the spectrum ( ) (2)
shown at point is sent to the PBS via a polarization controller
(PC3), by which the power distribution between the two ortho- where L, S and PL, Ps are the round-trip time and power in the
gonal polarization paths can be changed. After two different length long loop and short loop, respectively. () is the power density of
single mode bers (SMF1 and SMF2), which compose the short the input noise. Eq. (2) can explain the Q value property of the
loop and the long loop, the two orthogonal polarization un- polarization multiplexed dual-loop OEO with the power distribu-
balanced PM signals are combined via the PBC and fed to a pho- tion between the two loops [16]. If much power is located in the
todetector (PD). PC4 and PC5 are used in the short loop and long long loop, the Q value will be large, say it is near to the Q value of
loop to adjust the polarization directions of the two unbalanced single long loop OEO and the phase noise can be improved. For the
PM signals along the two principle axes of the PBC, respectively. polarization multiplexed dual-loop OEO, it is very exible to dis-
The optical to electrical conversion of the two unbalanced PM tribute the power in the long loop and the short loop by changing
signals is conducted independently upon the PD due to their or- the polarization state of unbalanced PM signal to the PBS, while
thogonal property. The recovered microwave signals are fed back the whole power in the two loops maintains a constant value
to the RF port of the phase modulator after amplication by an without attenuation. It is the advantage compared with the cou-
electrical amplier (EA). An electrical coupler is inset between the pler-based dual-loop OEO [13,15].
EA and the PD to split part of the microwave to be measured by an
electrical spectrum analyzer (ESA). The dual loops are combined in
optical domain and only one PD is needed for the OEO, which 3. Experiment and results
simplies the system structure and avoids the additional phase
noise by other active devices. An experiment based on the conguration shown in Fig. 1 is
When the gain of the circulation loops is larger than the loss, performed. A distributed feedback laser diode (DFB-LD, Emcore-
the oscillation modes fallen in the bandwidth of the SBS gain are 1772, with a linewidth of 380 kHz) and a tunable laser (NKT, DK-
built up. Only the oscillation mode with the frequency of being in 3460, with a linewidth of 0.9 kHz) are used as the pump and signal
phase both in the short loop and in the long loop can be lasers, respectively. The light wave from the DFB-LD is modulated
Pump
laser 2 Optical path
PC1
HNLF Electrical path
1
Signal PM 2 3
laser
ISO PC2 PC3
1 3 4
PBS
6
EA
SMF1 SMF2
ESA
Brillouin gain
spectrum fB
by the feedback electrical signal via a phase modulator (EO Space). modes of the OEO avoiding the electrical lter. Due to the HNLF
After an ISO the PM signal goes through a 1.1 km HNLF (YOFC, DSF- (1.1 km) for generating SBS gain used in the OEO, there are still
G653), where the upper sideband is amplied by the SBS gain several oscillation modes in the bandwidth of the SBS-based op-
pumped with the DFB-LD propagating in the opposite direction tical lter. Fig. 2(a) shows the measured spectrum (span 2 MHz)
and the amplitude balance of the PM sidebands is interrupted. The of the single-loop OEO built by disconnecting the short loop and
unbalanced PM signal from Port 3 of the OC enters to the PBS via connecting the long loop only. It can be seen from Fig. 2(a) that
PC3. The short loop (SMF1) is constructed by connecting the ber several side modes oscillate near the central frequency and the
pigtails of the PBS and PBC directly. The long loop (SMF2) is con- side-mode suppression ratio (SMSR) is 5 dB. When the short loop
structed by inserting a 1 km single mode ber between the other and the long loop are both connected, with the Vernier effect, only
two ber pigtails of the PBS and PBC. PC4 and PC5 are used in the the oscillation mode met to the oscillation conditions of both the
short loop and long loop to adjust the polarization directions of short loop and long loop can be excited. Therefore, the side modes
the light waves along the two principle axes of the PBC, respec- can be suppressed greatly. Fig. 3(b) shows the measured spectrum
tively. The power distribution between the short loop (SMF1) and (span 2 MHz) of the dual-loop OEO with equal power distribu-
the long loop (SMF2) can be changed by adjusting the polarization tion in the two loops. It can be seen from Fig. 3(b) that the SMSR of
direction of the unbalanced PM signal with PC3. The two ortho- 45 dB around 10 GHz is realized.
gonal unbalanced PM signals are combined via the PBS and fed to As explained in Section 2, the SBS gain amplies the upper
the PD (Miteq SCMR-10M18G). After being amplied by an EA sideband of the PM signal and interrupts the amplitude balance of
(Seekon microwave XK28265080) the recovered microwave sig- sidebands. The phase modulation to intensity modulation con-
nals are fed back to the RF port of the phase modulator. The version can be done upon the PD. The main oscillation frequency
spectrum and phase noise of the generated microwave signal split of the OEO is selected by the SBS-based optical lter. The mea-
through an electrical coupler are measured with the electrical sured spectrum with span of 100 MHz of the dual-loop OEO is
spectrum analyzer (Agilent E4440A) and the signal source analy- shown in Fig. 4(a). It can be seen that the single frequency mi-
zer (Agilent E5052B E5053A). crowave signal is generated successfully. The frequency can be
tuned by changing the frequency of signal laser or the pump laser
3.1. Side mode suppression and frequency tuning as expressed in Eq. (1). In the experiment, the frequency of the
signal laser is changed with a step of 8 p.m. and the output mi-
Firstly, the side mode suppression with the polarization mul- crowave signal of the polarization-multiplexed dual-loop OEO is
tiplexed dual-loop is investigated with the pump laser power of measured. During the measurement the electrical coupler is
50 mW and the signal laser power of 15 mW. The SBS-based op- placed after the EA to get a high power microwave and the results
tical lter with bandwidth of tens of MHz selects the oscillation are shown in Fig. 4(b). It can be seen that the frequency of the
-20 -20
5dB
-40 -40 45dB
Power (dBm)
Power (dBm)
-60 -60
-80 -80
-100 -100
-120 -120
9.9935 9.9940 9.9945 9.9950 10.0695 10.0700 10.0705 10.0710 10.0715
Fig. 3. The measured spectra of the generated microwave signals. (a) Single-loop and (b) dual-loop.
X. Han et al. / Optics Communications 383 (2017) 138143 141
20
-20
0
-40 -20
Power (dBm)
Power(dBm)
-60 -40
-80 -60
-80
-100
-100
-120
10.06 10.08 10.10 10.12 10.14 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Fig. 4. The measured spectra (a) single frequency microwave by SBS based optical lter, (b) frequency tuning of the microwave signal by changing the frequency of the signal
laser.
microwave signal can be tuned from 4 GHz to 16 GHz. The lower induces that energy storage time of dual-loop is less the one of
limit of tunable frequency range is conned by the frequency re- single long loop and the phase noise near the zero frequency offset
sponse band of the electrical splitter and the upper limit frequency degrades. With the frequency offset from 50 kHz to 10 MHz, the
is conned by the frequency response band of the phase mod- phase noise is mainly inuenced by the side modes. With the side
ulator and PD. The tunable range can be extended further if de- mode suppression by the dual-loop, the phase noise of dual-loop
vices with high frequency response band [13]. OEO is much lower than the one of the single-loop OEO. For ex-
ample, at the frequency offset of 80 kHz, the phase noise is
90.8 dBc/Hz for the dual-loop and 53.9 dBc/Hz for the single-
3.2. Phase noise
loop. The improvement of as much as 37 dB is obtained.
Then the phase noise of different frequency microwave signal is
The phase noise is a key performance parameter of the OEO.
measured. The microwave signals with frequency of 5, 10 and
We measured and analyzed the phase noise of dual-loop OEO at
15 GHz are generated from the dual-loop OEO by changing the
different microwave frequencies, different signal laser power and
frequency of the signal laser with a wavelength step of 40 p.m. and
different power distribution in the two loops.
the xed power of 15 mW. The measured phase noise of different
frequency microwave signal is shown in Fig. 6. It can be seen from
3.2.1. Phase noise at different microwave frequencies
Fig. 6 that the phase noise is basically equal for the 5, 10 and
Firstly, to investigate the effect of the side mode suppression
15 GHz microwave signal, revealing the independence of the phase
with the polarization-multiplexed dual-loop, the phase noise of
noise on frequency [1].
microwave signal at 10 GHz generated by the dual-loop OEO and
by the single-loop OEO is measured. During the experiment, the
3.2.2. Phase noise vs. signal laser power
signal laser power is 15 mW and the power distribution in the two The inuence of signal laser power on the phase noise of the
loops for the dual-loop OEO is equal. The single-loop OEO is built dual-loop OEO is investigated. The frequency of the microwave
by disconnecting the short loop and connecting the long loop only. signal is xed at 10 GHz and the pump laser power is 50 mW. The
The measured phase noise is shown in Fig. 5. It can be seen from signal laser power is changed from 10 mW to 35 mW with a step
Fig. 5 that with the frequency offset from 100 Hz to 50 kHz, the of 5 mW. The measured phase noise of the microwave signal at
phase noise of single-loop OEO is better than the one of the dual- different signal laser power is shown in Fig. 7. It can be seen from
loop OEO. This is due to the Q value of dual-loop is between the Q Fig. 7 that the phase noise decreases slightly when the signal laser
value of single long loop and the one of single short loop, which power increases, which is consistent with the theoretical analysis
-40 Dual-loop
-40 10GHz
-60 -60
15GHz
Side modes
-80 -80
-100 -100
-120 -120
-140 -140
100 1k 10k 100k 1M 10M 100M 100 1k 10k 100k 1M 10M 100M
Frequency offset (Hz) Frequency offset (Hz)
Fig. 5. The measured phase noise of the dual-loop and single-loop OEOs. Fig. 6. The measured phase noise of different frequency microwave signal.
142 X. Han et al. / Optics Communications 383 (2017) 138143
PS 0.551 mW. From Fig. 8 it can be seen that the near end phase
-20 10mW
noise with the frequency offset from 100 Hz to 40 kHz are differ-
Phase noise (dBc/Hz)
15mW
-40 ent for the three cases. When more power is located in the long
20mW
25mW loop, the phase noise (black line) is relatively low; when more
-60
30mW power is located in the short loop, the phase noise (blue line) is
35mW relatively high; when the power located in the two loops is almost
-80 equal (red line), the phase noise is between the above two cases.
As an example, for the frequency offset of 10 kHz, the phase noise
-100
is 94.5 dBc/Hz, 90.5 dBc/Hz and 87.9 dBc/Hz for the three
-120 cases. It can be concluded that if more power is located in the long
loop, it is helpful to depress the near end phase noise at frequency
-140 offset from 100 Hz to 40 kHz, which is consistent with the Q value
100 1k 10k 100k 1M 10M 100M expressed as Eq. (2).
the Central Universities under grants DUT15ZD231 and scattering in optical bers, Opt. Lett. 22 (17) (1997) 13291331.
DUT2015TD47. [11] B. Yang, X.F. Jin, H. Chi, X.M. Zhang, S.L. Zheng, S.H. Zou, K.S. Chen,
E. Tangdiongga, T. Koonen, Optically tunable frequency-doubling Brillouin
optoelectronic oscillator with carrier phase-shifted double sideband modula-
tion, IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 24 (12) (2012) 10511053.
References [12] T. Sun, C. Zhang, X.P. Xie, P. Guo, X.Q. Zhu, L.X. Zhu, W.W. Hu, and Z.Y. Chen, A
wideband tunable optoelectronic oscillator based on stimulated Brillouin
scattering, in: Proceedings of the 2013 OptoElectronics and Communications
[1] X.S. Yao, L. Maleki, Optoelectronic microwave oscillator, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 13 Conference and Photonics in Switching, Kyoto Japan, 30 June4 July, 2013,
(8) (1996) 17251735. paper TuPO-10.
[2] H. Tsuchida, M. Suzuki, 40 Gb/s clock recovery using an injection-locked op- [13] H.F. Peng, C. Zhang, X.P. Xie, T. Sun, P. Guo, X.Q. Zhu, L.X. Zhu, W.W. Hu, Z.
toelectronic oscillator, IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 17 (1) (2005) 211213. Y. Chen, Tunable DC-60 GHz RF generation utilizing a dual-loop optoelectronic
[3] P. Devgan, A review of optoelectronic oscillators for high speed signal pro-
oscillator based on stimulated Brillouin scattering, J. Light. Technol. 33 (13)
cessing applications, ISRN Electron. 2013, Vol. 2013, Artical ID 401969.
(2015) 27072715.
[4] W. Li, F. Kong, J.P. Yao, Arbitrary microwave waveform generation based on a
[14] Y. Jiang, J.L. Yu, Y.T. Wang, L.T. Zhang, E.Z. Zhang, An optical domain combined
tunable optoelectronic oscillator, IEEE/OSA J. Light. Technol. 31 (23) (2013)
dual-loop optoelectronic oscillator, IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 19 (11) (2007)
37803786.
807809.
[5] X.H. Zou, Liu X.K. Liu, W.L. Li, P.X. Li, P. Wei, Ls n Yan, L.Y. Shao, Optoelectronic
[15] D. Eliyahu, L. Maleki, Low phase noise and spurious level in multi-loop op-
oscillators (OEOs) to sensing, measurement, and detection, IEEE J. Quantum
toelectronic oscillators, in: Proceedings of the 2003 IEEE International Fre-
Electron. 52 (1) (2016) 0601116.
[6] W. Li, J. Yao, A wideband frequency tunable optoelectronic oscillator in- quency Control Symposium and PDA Exhibition Jointly with the 17th Eur-
corporating a tunable microwave photonic lter based on phase modulation to opean Frequency and Time Forum, May 48, 2003, pp. 405410.
intensity-modulation conversion using a phase-shifted ber Bragg grating, [16] T. Bnky, B. Horvth, T. Berceli, Optimum conguration of multiloop optoe-
IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Technol. 60 (6) (2012) 17351742. lectronic oscillators, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 23 (7) (2006) 13711380.
[7] X.P. Xie, C. Zhang, T. Sun, P. Guo, X.Q. Zhu, L.X. Zhu, W.W. Hu, Z.Y. Chen, [17] C. Williams, J.D. Rodriguez, D. Mandridis, P.J. Delfyett, Noise characterization of
Wideband tunable optoelectronic oscillator based on a phase modulator and a an injection-locked COEO with long term stabilization, J. Light. Technol. 29
tunable optical lter, Opt. Lett. 38 (5) (2013) 655657. (19) (2011) 29062912.
[8] X.Y. Han, L.N. Wang, Y.C. Shao, C. Tong, Q. Ye, Y.Y. Gu, M.S. Zhao, Filtering [18] X.Y. Xu, J. Dai, Y.T. Dai, F.F. Yin, Y. Zhou, J.Q. Li, J. Yin, Q.Y. Wang, K. Xu,
properties of the tunable microwave photonic lter with stimulated Brillouin Broadband and wide-range feedback tuning scheme for phase-locked loop
scattering, Opt. Eng. 53 (6) (2014) 066110. stabilization of tunable optoelectronic oscillators, Opt. Lett. 40 (24) (2015)
[9] S.L. Hu, L.W. Li, X.K. Yi, C.Y. Yu, Ultraat widely tuned single bandpass lter 58585861.
based on stimulated Brillouin scattering, IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 26 (14) [19] D. Eliyahu, K. Sariri, J. Taylor, L. Maleki, Optoelectronic oscillator with im-
(2014) 14661469. proved phase noise and frequency stability, in: Proceedings of the SPIE 4998,
[10] X. Steve Yao, High-quality microwave signal generation by use of Brillouin 2003, pp. 139147.