See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/281778411

Frequency tunable optoelectronic oscillator based on a directly modulated DFB

semiconductor laser under optical injection

Article  in  Optics Express · September 2015

DOI: 10.1364/OE.23.020450

CITATIONS READS

26 1,267

11 authors, including:

Peng Wang Tingting Zhang

Queen's University Aston University
20 PUBLICATIONS   154 CITATIONS    35 PUBLICATIONS   293 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Peng Xiang Yunshan Zhang

University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China Nanjing University
64 PUBLICATIONS   372 CITATIONS    58 PUBLICATIONS   295 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Jiangsu Natural Science Foundation View project

Petabit Energy Aware Capacity Enhancement (PEACE) View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Peng Wang on 05 January 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Frequency tunable optoelectronic oscillator
based on a directly modulated DFB
semiconductor laser under optical injection
Peng Wang,1,2 Jintian Xiong,3 Tingting Zhang,1 Dalei Chen,2 Peng Xiang,2 Jilin
Zheng1,2,* Yunshan Zhang,1 Ruoming Li,1 Long Huang,1 Tao Pu,2 and Xiangfei Chen1
1
National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nanjing
University, Nanjing 210093, China
2
College of Communications Engineering, PLA University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210007, China
3
63rd Research Institution, PLA University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210007, China
*zhengjilinjs@126.com

Abstract: A frequency tunable optoelectronic oscillator based on a directly

modulated distributed-feedback (DFB) semiconductor laser under optical
injection is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Through optical
injection, the relaxation oscillation frequency of the DFB laser is enhanced
and its high modulation efficiency can enable the loop oscillation with a RF
threshold gain of less than 20 dB. The DFB laser is a commercial
semiconductor laser with a package of 10 GHz, and its packaging limitation
can be overcome by optical injection. In our scheme, neither a high-speed
external modulator nor an electrical bandpass filter is required, making the
system simple and low-cost. Microwave signals with a frequency tuning
range from 5.98 to 15.22 GHz are generated by adjusting the injection ratio
and frequency detuning between the master and slave lasers. The phase
noise of the generated 9.75 GHz microwave signal is measured to be
−104.8 dBc/Hz @ 10 kHz frequency offset.
©2015 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (230.4910) Oscillators; (230.0250) Optoelectronics; (140.3520) Lasers, injection-
locked; (140.3490) Lasers, distributed-feedback.

References and links

1. X. S. Yao and L. Maleki, “Optoelectronic microwave oscillator,” J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 13(8), 1725–1735 (1996).
2. H. Tsuchida and M. Suzuki, “40-Gb/s optical clock recovery using an injection-locked optoelectronic oscillator,”
IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 17(1), 211–213 (2005).
3. X. S. Yao and L. Maleki, “Opto-electronic oscillator and its applications,” Proc. SPIE 3038, 97–107 (1997).
4. M. E. Belkin, L. Belkin, A. Loparev, A. S. Sigov, G. Suruceanu, A. Sirbu, A. Mereuta, A. Caliman, D. Ellafi, V.
Iakovlev, and E. Kapon, “VCSEL-based processing of microwave signals,” in Proceedings of International
Topical Meeting on Microwave Photonics and the Asia-Pacific Microwave Photonics Conference (IEEE, 2014),
pp. 284–287.
5. H. K. Sung, X. X. Zhao, E. K. Lau, D. Parekh, C. J. Chang-Hasnain, and M. C. Wu, “Optoelectronic oscillators
using direct-modulated semiconductor lasers under strong optical injection,” IEEE J. Sel. Top. Quantum
Electron. 15(3), 572–577 (2009).
6. S. Poinsot, H. Porte, J.-P. Goedgebuer, W. T. Rhodes, and B. Boussert, “Continuous radio-frequency tuning of
an optoelectronic oscillator with dispersive feedback,” Opt. Lett. 27(15), 1300–1302 (2002).
7. E. Shumakher, S. Ó. Dúill, and G. Eisenstein, “Optoelectronic oscillator tunable by an SOA based slow light
element,” J. Lightwave Technol. 27(18), 4063–4068 (2009).
8. S. Pan and J. Yao, “Wideband and frequency-tunable microwave generation using an optoelectronic oscillator
incorporating a Fabry-Perot laser diode with external optical injection,” Opt. Lett. 35(11), 1911–1913 (2010).
9. Z. Tang, S. Pan, D. Zhu, R. Guo, Y. Zhao, M. Pan, D. Ben, and J. Yao, “Tunable optoelectronic oscillator based
on a polarization modulator and a chirped FBG,” IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 24(17), 1487–1489 (2012).
10. W. Li and J. Yao, “A wideband frequency tunable optoelectronic oscillator incorporating a tunable microwave
photonic filter based on phase-modulation to intensity-modulation conversion using a phase-shifted fiber Bragg
grating,” IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech. 60(6), 1735–1742 (2012).
11. X. Xie, C. Zhang, T. Sun, P. Guo, X. Zhu, L. Zhu, W. Hu, and Z. Chen, “Wideband tunable optoelectronic
oscillator based on a phase modulator and a tunable optical filter,” Opt. Lett. 38(5), 655–657 (2013).

#238477 Received 22 Apr 2015; revised 14 Jun 2015; accepted 21 Jun 2015; published 28 Jul 2015
© 2015 OSA 10 Aug 2015 | Vol. 23, No. 16 | DOI:10.1364/OE.23.020450 | OPTICS EXPRESS 20450
12. K. Volyanskiy, P. Salzenstein, H. Tavernier, M. Pogurmirskiy, Y. K. Chembo, and L. Larger, “Compact
optoelectronic microwave oscillators using ultra-high Q whispering gallery mode disk-resonators and phase
modulation,” Opt. Express 18(21), 22358–22363 (2010).
13. P. Wang, J. Xiong, T. Zhang, J. Zheng, T. Pu, and X. Chen, “Widely Tunable OEO Based on a Directly
Modulated DFB Laser under Optical Injection,” in Optical Fiber Communication Conference, OSA Technical
Digest Series (Optical Society of America, 2015), paper M3E.1.
14. J. Yang, J. Yu, Y. Wang, L. Zhang, and E. Yang, “An optical domain combined dual-loop optoelectronic
oscillator,” IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 19(11), 807–809 (2007).
15. X. S. Yao and L. Maleki, “Multiloop optoelectronic oscillator,” IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 36(1), 79–84 (2000).
16. A. Murakami, K. Kawashima, and K. Atsuki, “Cavity resonance shift and bandwidth enhancement in
semiconductor lasers with strong light injection,” IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 39(10), 1196–1204 (2003).
17. J. Xiong, R. Wang, T. Fang, T. Pu, D. Chen, L. Lu, P. Xiang, J. Zheng, and J. Zhao, “Low-cost and wideband
frequency tunable optoelectronic oscillator based on a directly modulated distributed feedback semiconductor
laser,” Opt. Lett. 38(20), 4128–4130 (2013).
18. H. K. Sung, E. K. Lau, and M. C. Wu, “Optical single sideband modulation using strong optical injection-locked
semiconductor lasers,” IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 19(13), 1005–1007 (2007).
19. E. K. Lau, H. K. Sung, and M. C. Wu, “Frequency response enhancement of optical injection-locked lasers,”
IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 44(1), 90–99 (2008).
20. C. Henry, N. Olsson, and N. Dutta, “Locking range and stability of injection locked 1.54 µm InGaAsP
semiconductor lasers,” IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 21(8), 1152–1156 (1985).
21. E. K. Lau, H. K. Sung, and M. C. Wu, “Scaling of resonance frequency for strong injection-locked lasers,” Opt.
Lett. 32(23), 3373–3375 (2007).
22. F. Mogensen, H. Olesen, and G. Jacobsen, “Locking conditions and stability properties for a semiconductor laser
with external light injection,” IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 21(7), 784–793 (1985).
23. H. K. Sung, T. Jung, M. C. Wu, D. Tishinin, T. Tanbun-Ek, K. Y. Liou, and W. T. Tsang, “Modulation
bandwidth enhancement and nonlinear distortion suppression in directly modulated monolithic injection-locked
DFB lasers,” in Proceedings of International Topical Meeting on Microwave Photonics (IEEE, 2003), pp. 27–
30.
24. K. Saleh, R. Henriet, S. Diallo, G. Lin, R. Martinenghi, I. V. Balakireva, P. Salzenstein, A. Coillet, and Y. K.
Chembo, “Phase noise performance comparison between optoelectronic oscillators based on optical delay lines
and whispering gallery mode resonators,” Opt. Express 22(26), 32158–32173 (2014).

1. Introduction
Optoelectronic oscillators (OEOs) have received much attention since it was firstly proposed
by Yao and Maleki in 1996 [1]. Due to the distinguished phase noise performance and the
ability to generate a high-frequency signal, OEOs are useful in wireless communications,
radar, optical signal processing [2] and modern instrumentations [3]. Conventionally, an
expensive external modulator is required to form the feedback loop in an OEO structure, and
a high-Q electrical band-pass filter (EBPF) is needed to ensure a single frequency oscillation.
The use of an external modulator usually leads to high RF loss due to its low modulation
efficiency, and RF amplifiers with high gain are necessary to compensate the link loss in the
loop. A simple OEO based on a directly modulated wafer-fused VCSEL (vertical cavity
surface emitting laser) was demonstrated, in which the VCSEL served as an external
modulator [4]. However, an expensive electrical tunable band pass YIG-filter was used and
the total RF gain was near 50 dB, making the system costly. Sung et al. proposed a new
structure using directly modulated semiconductor lasers under strong optical injection [5]. In
the system, an external modulator is replaced by a distributed-feedback (DFB) semiconductor
laser to reduce the RF link loss of the feedback loop. They realized a low RF threshold gain
of 7 dB to obtain an oscillation, but an EBPF with a fixed central frequency was still used,
which limits the tunability of the OEO to tens of megahertz [6,7]. Microwave photonic filter
(MPF) provides an effective solution to an OEO with a large tuning range [8–11]. In [8], an
optical-injected Fabry-Perot laser diode (FP-LD) was implemented to act as a MPF. When the
wavelength of the injected light wave changes or the longitudinal modes of the FP-LD are
adjusted, the output signal frequency can be tuned from 6.41 to 10.85 GHz. However, the
stability of the OEO is poor due to the wavelength drift of the LD and an external modulator
is still used. In [9], the tunable MPF was composed of a polarization modulator and a chirped
fiber Bragg grating (CFBG). By adjusting the polarization state of the signal, microwave
signal with a tunable frequency within 5.8 to 11.8 GHz was generated. In [10], two phase
modulators (PMs) and a phase-shifted FBG (PSFBG) served as a MPF, realizing a frequency
tuning range from 3 to 28 GHz by adjusting the wavelength of the light wave. In [11], a MPF

#238477 Received 22 Apr 2015; revised 14 Jun 2015; accepted 21 Jun 2015; published 28 Jul 2015
© 2015 OSA 10 Aug 2015 | Vol. 23, No. 16 | DOI:10.1364/OE.23.020450 | OPTICS EXPRESS 20451
consisting of a PM and a tunable optical filter was used to realize an OEO with a wideband
frequency tuning range from 4.74 to 38.38 GHz by tuning the bandwidth of the optical filter.
However, all the structures mentioned in [9–11] employ a high-speed external modulator and
a high-performance optical filter, making the system bulky and costly. Recently, a compact
optoelectronic oscillator based on phase modulation and ultra-high Q disk resonator is
demonstrated [12]. The ultra-high Q whispering gallery-mode (WGM) optical resonator
serves as an energy storage element and realize phase-to-intensity conversion as well.
However, a phase modulator was still used and the tunability of the frequency is limited.
In this paper, a novel scheme to realize a frequency tunable OEO using a directly
modulated DFB semiconductor laser under optical injection is proposed and experimentally
demonstrated. In the proposed scheme, neither a high-speed external modulator nor an
electrical bandpass filter is needed, which makes the system simple and low-cost. Besides
that, due to the high modulation efficiency of the DFB laser at the relaxation oscillation
frequency, a less than 20 dB gain of the electrical loop is enough for the system to oscillate.
In our system, the directly modulated slave DFB laser is a commercial semiconductor laser
with a peak modulation frequency of 10 GHz. However, a high relaxation oscillation peak can
still exist at the frequency over 15 GHz with the help of optical injection [13]. By adjusting
the injection ratio and frequency detuning between the master and slave lasers, microwave
signals with a frequency tuning range from 5.98 to 15.22 GHz are generated. The phase noise
of the generated 9.75 GHz microwave signal is −104.8 dBc/Hz @ 10 kHz frequency offset.
The phase noise of the other RF frequencies are all below −101 dBc/Hz at 10 kHz offset.
2. Experimental setup and principles

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the proposed OEO. (TLS: tunable laser source, PC: polarization
controller, OC: optical circulator, PBS: polarization beam splitter, OSA: optical spectrum
analyzer, PD: photo-detector, LNA: low noise amplifier, ESA: electrical spectrum analyzer).

The schematic diagram of the proposed OEO is shown in Fig. 1. A tunable laser source
(Agilent 81989A) is used as the master laser. An optical circulator is employed to realize
optical injection, and it can also prevent coupling from the slave to the master laser. A DFB
laser, biased at 20.38 mA (~2Ith) with an output power of −0.2 dBm, is used as the slave laser.
Polarization controller 1 is employed to match the polarization states of the master and slave
lasers. In order to suppress the unwanted spur modes, two optical fiber delay lines are
implemented based on the Vernier effect [14]. The dual loop structure results in a larger mode
spacing and a lower threshold gain for the oscillation. Moreover, the phase noise of the
oscillator, which is inversely proportional to the square of the loop length, is determined by
the longer loop [15]. Since there is no thermal isolation, the optical delay has a variation of
about 33.3 ps/°C (for 1 km fiber) and 92.3 ps/°C (for 2.77 km fiber) respectively. After the
output combination at a polarization beam splitter (PBS), 1% of the light is extracted for
signal monitoring using an optical spectrum analyzer (Yokogawa AQ6370) with a resolution
of 0.02 nm, while the other 99% of the light is detected by a photo-detector (ET3500F) with a
bandwidth of 15 GHz. The generated RF signal is amplified by a low noise amplifier
(LA2018N4020) with a RF gain of 25 dB and a 3-dB bandwidth of 0.8-18 GHz. Since the

#238477 Received 22 Apr 2015; revised 14 Jun 2015; accepted 21 Jun 2015; published 28 Jul 2015
© 2015 OSA 10 Aug 2015 | Vol. 23, No. 16 | DOI:10.1364/OE.23.020450 | OPTICS EXPRESS 20452
power of the feedback RF signal determines whether the DFB laser working under small
signal modulation, an electrical attenuator is unnecessary before the laser. The amplified RF
signal is split by an electrical coupler, and the 10% part is measured by an electrical spectrum
analyzer (Agilent N9030A), while the 90% part is fed back to the DFB laser to close the loop.
Obviously, neither a high-speed external modulator nor an electrical bandpass filter is
necessary in the configuration, and an electrical amplifier with a RF gain of 25 dB is enough
for the loop to oscillate.
It is well known that there is a peak in the frequency response of a directly modulated
DFB laser named relaxation oscillation peak, as shown in Fig. 2. The relaxation oscillation
frequency (ωR0), which centers at relaxation oscillation peak, is given as [16]

ωR = gγ p P0
0
(1)

where g is the differential optical gain, γp is the photon decay rate given by the reciprocal of
the photon lifetime, and P0 is the average photon number in the laser cavity. The frequency at
ωR0 has the highest modulation efficiency when a DFB laser is directly modulated by a RF
signal. It can be utilized in an OEO system to simplify the structure and decrease the RF
threshold gain. Our previous work has shown that the loop oscillation can be realized using a
directly modulated DFB laser with a lower loop gain [17].

Fig. 2. Measured frequency response of the free-running DFB laser under various bias current
and a constant temperature of 23 °C.

The slave laser used in our experiment is a commercial DFB semiconductor laser with a
package bandwidth of 10 GHz. We measured the frequency response of the free-running DFB
laser using a vector network analyzer (Anritsu MS4647A). The results are shown in Fig. 2.
The temperature is fixed at 23 °C and the bias current is adjusted from 15 mA to 90 mA with
a step of 15 mA. The notches in the response curve are resulted from the package of the DFB
laser because their positions don’t change under different bias current. The modulation
bandwidth is increased but the relaxation oscillation peak gets suppressed as the bias current
increases. In this case, the tuning range of the OEO proposed in [17] is limited.
In order to extend the tuning range of the relaxation oscillation frequency, we apply
optical injection. During optical injection, the DFB laser exhibits an injection locking
frequency finj, which is the emission frequency of the DFB laser when it is injection-locked,
and a red-shifted cavity mode fcav, which is the new cavity resonance frequency of the DFB
laser under injection locking [18], as shown in Fig. 3(b). When the injection-locked laser is
modulated by a RF signal at the frequency around fm, which is the frequency difference of the
finj and fcav, fm = finj-fcav, the lower sideband is resonantly amplified by the cavity mode, while
the upper sideband remains unchanged, which is depicted in Fig. 3(c). Therefore, the

#238477 Received 22 Apr 2015; revised 14 Jun 2015; accepted 21 Jun 2015; published 28 Jul 2015
© 2015 OSA 10 Aug 2015 | Vol. 23, No. 16 | DOI:10.1364/OE.23.020450 | OPTICS EXPRESS 20453
 Fig. 3. Illustration of the frequency response of the DFB laser under optical injection. (a), (b),
(c) are the optical spectra of the free-running laser, the injected laser without modulation, and
the injected laser which is modulated by a RF signal with a modulation frequency of fm,
respectively. (d) Frequency response of the injected laser.

frequencies around the lower sideband get gained from the red-shifted cavity mode and have
a higher response, corresponding to an enhanced relaxation oscillation peak in the RF
response curve shown as Fig. 3(d).
Under a strong optical injection, the relaxation oscillation frequency is induced by the
coupling between the photon amplitude and phase, corresponding to the frequency difference
between the main locking mode and the red-shifted cavity mode of the slave laser [15]. Erwin
K. L. et al. developed a small-signal, linearized theoretical model to analyze the optical
injection laser system [19], from which the relaxation oscillation frequency of the injected
DFB laser can be approximated as
ωR 2 = ωR 0 2 + ΔωR 2 (2)

1− r
ΔωR = −κ R sin ϕ0 (3)
r
where ωR and ωR0 (ωx = 2πfx) are the injected and free-running relaxation oscillation
frequency, respectively. ΔωR represents the enhancement term [20,21], κ is the coupling
coefficient that determines the efficiency of the injection process, R is the external injection
ratio which is defined as the power ratio between the injected power and the lasing power of
the free-running slave laser measured outside the cavity, r is the power reflectivity at the
injection

Fig. 4. Injection locking diagram as a function of injection ratio and frequency detuning.

#238477 Received 22 Apr 2015; revised 14 Jun 2015; accepted 21 Jun 2015; published 28 Jul 2015
© 2015 OSA 10 Aug 2015 | Vol. 23, No. 16 | DOI:10.1364/OE.23.020450 | OPTICS EXPRESS 20454
facet, and φ0 is the phase difference between the fields of the master and slave lasers.
According to Eq. (3), the frequency enhancement term ΔωR is related to the injection ratio R
and phase difference φ0 for a given slave laser, which can be changed by adjusting the master
laser. The region of stable locking is shown in Fig. 4 as a function of the injection ratio and
frequency detuning [19]. At various injection parameters, the DFB laser exhibits unlocked,
unstable locking and stable locking state. Our research focuses on the stable locking region,
which is between the red line and blue line in Fig. 4. Figure 5 shows the calculated frequency
response under various injection ratios and frequency detuning values. As the injection power
increases, the injection ratio R is enhanced. However, the carriers of the slave laser is further
depleted with the gradual increase of the injected power, as a result the peak of frequency
response due to the relaxation oscillation is reduced, as depicted in Fig. 5(a). The phase
difference between the master and slave fields φ0 is approximately changing from tan−1α of
the negative frequency detuning edge (blue line in Fig. 4) to -π/2 of the positive frequency
detuning edge (red line in Fig. 4), where α is the linewidth enhancement factor [22], which
leads to an increased |sinφ| and thus a greater ΔωR2. As a result, according to the Eq. (3), the
relaxation oscillation frequency, ωR, is increased, which is shown as Fig. 5(b). Here, the
frequency detuning is defined as the frequency difference between the master and the free-
running slave lasers (Δf = fmaster-fslave). In this way, the relaxation oscillation frequency (ωR)
can be tuned over a wide range by simply adjusting the wavelength and output power of the
master laser.

Fig. 5. Calculated frequency response for (a) various injection ratios and a fixed frequency
detuning of 0.04 GHz; (b) various frequency detuning and a fixed injection ratio of 0 dB.

3. Measured results
By using the optical injection, the relaxation oscillation peak can be enhanced, which makes
the RF threshold gain further reduced and the tuning range enlarged. As is shown in Fig. 6(a),
the injection ratio varies from −4.39 to 0.86 dB at a fixed frequency detuning of 0 GHz. With

Fig. 6. Measured frequency response of the injected DFB laser under (a) various injection ratio
and a fixed frequency detuning of 0 GHz; (b) various frequency detuning and a fixed injection
ratio of −0.01 dB.

#238477 Received 22 Apr 2015; revised 14 Jun 2015; accepted 21 Jun 2015; published 28 Jul 2015
© 2015 OSA 10 Aug 2015 | Vol. 23, No. 16 | DOI:10.1364/OE.23.020450 | OPTICS EXPRESS 20455
increasing of the injection ratio, the relaxation oscillation frequency can be enlarged
dramatically. In Fig. 6(b), the frequency detuning is increased from −16.38 to 2.50 GHz while
the injection ratio is fixed at −0.01 dB. Towards positive frequency detuning, the slave laser
shows a high narrow-band response peak, resulting from the resonant amplification of the
modulation sideband by the red-shifted cavity mode. In our experiment, the frequency
response at 14.77 GHz is improved by a 34.7 dB when the frequency detuning changes from
−16.38 to 2.5 GHz. The measured results agree with the calculated frequency response in Fig.
5.
By adjusting the injection parameters, we can obtain an optimized response for every
frequency, as shown in Fig. 7. The free-running DFB laser (biased at 2Ith) has a 3-dB
bandwidth of 7.15 GHz and an unapparent relaxation oscillation peak. After the optical
injection, the relaxation oscillation peak is enhanced and its frequency can be tuned over a
much wider range. It should be noted that the bandwidth of the PD is 15 GHz, which limits
the response at higher frequency. We believe the tuning range can be further improved by
using a PD with larger bandwidth [13].

Fig. 7. Measured frequency response of the DFB laser with optimized injection parameters.

Fig. 8. (a) Optical spectra of the OEO loop with and without the feedback. (b) Corresponding
RF spectrum of the generated 11.72 GHz microwave signal with feedback on; RBW = 1 MHz.

An experiment based on the setup shown in Fig. 1 is carried out. By closing the loop, the
OEO starts to oscillate at the frequency around the relaxation oscillation peak. Figure 8(a)
shows the measured optical spectra with and without an optoelectronic feedback when the
frequency detuning and injection ratio are set as −3.86 GHz and 8.12 dB, respectively. In Fig.
8(a), the violet line displays the injection locking mode and the cavity mode under the
injection locking when the loop is open. When the optoelectronic feedback is turned on, the
modulation sidebands are enhanced due to the loop oscillation. Figure 8(b) shows the RF
spectrum when the loop is closed. It can be seen that a clean microwave signal at 11.72 GHz

#238477 Received 22 Apr 2015; revised 14 Jun 2015; accepted 21 Jun 2015; published 28 Jul 2015
© 2015 OSA 10 Aug 2015 | Vol. 23, No. 16 | DOI:10.1364/OE.23.020450 | OPTICS EXPRESS 20456
is generated. Changing the frequency detuning and injection ratio by adjusting the TLS, the
generated microwave signals can be tuned over a wide range. Figure 9 shows the generated
microwave signals over a frequency tuning range from 5.98 to 15.22 GHz. Due to the uneven
frequency response of the slave DFB laser under the optical injection, the output power does
not remain constant. The tuning range is mainly limited by the bandwidth of the PD. Besides
that, the frequency response of the low noise amplifier (LNA) is also not flat, of which the RF
gain at 15 GHz is 5.6 dB less than that of 9 GHz, as shown in Fig. 10(a). Furthermore, the
frequency response of the power splitter has a power fluctuation of 1.3 dB, as shown in Fig.
10(b). Therefore, the power spectra of the generated microwave signals shows ripples over
the tuning range and a quick decrease at the frequency around 15 GHz. We believe this
problem can be solved by using a PD with a broader bandwidth and an electrical amplifier
with a flatter gain response.

Fig. 9. Spectra of the generated electrical signals with the frequency tuned from 5.98 to 15.22
GHz; RBW = 1 MHz.

Fig. 10. Frequency response of the (a) low noise amplifier; (b) power splitter.

The performance of the phase noise of the generated microwave signals is also
investigated. Figure 11 shows the phase noise curve of the generated 9.75 GHz electrical
signal, which is measured by an Agilent N9030A. It is measured to be −104.8 dBc/Hz at 10
kHz frequency offset. We investigate the Vernier effect by measuring the phase noise with
the structure of a single loop (2.77 km) and with the structure of dual loops (1 km and 2.77
km) respectively. As shown in Fig. 11, the phase noise of the single loop structure shows
many densely spaced (~72 kHz) spur modes, which correspond to the free spectral range of
the loop. By implementing a dual loop structure, the spur modes are greatly suppressed and
the FSR is improved to ~215 kHz. The peak of the sidemodes is reduced from −49.25 dBc/Hz
to −82.7 dBc/Hz, indicating the good spectrum purity of the OEO. As we can see from Fig.
12, the phase noise of the other RF frequencies are all below −101 dBc/Hz at 10 kHz offset,
which indicates the advantage of generating low phase noise at high frequency. The phase
noise is degraded by the strong optical beating noise between the main locking mode and

#238477 Received 22 Apr 2015; revised 14 Jun 2015; accepted 21 Jun 2015; published 28 Jul 2015
© 2015 OSA 10 Aug 2015 | Vol. 23, No. 16 | DOI:10.1364/OE.23.020450 | OPTICS EXPRESS 20457
 cavity mode [5]. Using a DFB laser with a narrower linewidth, the phase noise can be
improved (the linewidth of our DFB laser is 1.7 MHz). The stability of the OEO is also
investigated in a laboratory environment without mechanical or thermal isolation. During half
an hour observation, no mode hopping is found and the frequency drift is less than 20 kHz.

Fig. 11. Phase noise of the generated 9.75 GHz microwave signal. The phase noise at 10 kHz
frequency offset is −104.8 dBc/Hz.

Fig. 12. Phase noise performance at different microwave frequencies.

4. Conclusion
A simple and cost-effective OEO structure to generate wideband and frequency tunable
microwave signals based on a directly modulated DFB semiconductor laser under optical
injection has been proposed. Although the experiment for demonstrating the concept is kind
of bulky, the size of the system can be further reduced by using a monolithic two-section
injection locking DFB laser [23] and replacing the optical fibers with optical resonators [24].
We believe the system has the potential to be integrated as a compact OEO. By changing the
injection ratio and frequency detuning, microwave signals with a tuning range from 5.98 to
15.22 GHz were generated. Using a photo-detector with higher bandwidth and an electrical
amplifier with flatter gain response, the maximum tunable frequency can be further increased.
The highlight of our scheme is that neither a high-speed external modulator nor an electrical
filter is needed and a less than 20 dB gain of electrical is enough to enable the oscillation.
Therefore, the proposed OEO is simple and cost-effective, which can be implemented in
modern wireless communications and radar systems.
Acknowledgments
This work was partly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)
under grants 61475193, 61032005 and 61177065; and the Jiangsu Province Natural Science
Foundation under grant BK2012058, BK20140414 and BK20140069. The authors would like
to thank Agilent Inc. for lending the phase noise measurement device.

#238477 Received 22 Apr 2015; revised 14 Jun 2015; accepted 21 Jun 2015; published 28 Jul 2015
© 2015 OSA 10 Aug 2015 | Vol. 23, No. 16 | DOI:10.1364/OE.23.020450 | OPTICS EXPRESS 20458

View publication stats