Integrated lightwave millimetric single side-band source: design and issues

We report on a fully integrated lightwave single side-band (SSB) source optimized for millimeter-wave (20-40 GHz) transport over fiber with no chromatic dispersion penalty. The operation principle is first developed. A practical design is proposed and tolerances of multimode interference (MMI) couplers and electroabsorption (EA) modulators subcomponents are theoretically and experimentally examined. The phase tolerances of MMI couplers are in particular given for the first time for such a scheme. These results imply the achievement of fully integrated rugged SSB source without resorting to complex technology steps.