Microwave signal mixing by using a fiber-based optoelectronic oscillator for wavelength-division multiplexed systems

A novel microwave fiber-optic link has been proposed where the information data is up/down converted by two external modulators. The high-frequency local oscillator (LO) is generally obtained by multiplying a low frequency standard through numerous stages of multiplier and amplifiers, which is bulky and cumbersome. Recently, a new kind of fiber-based photonic oscillator has been proposed and demonstrated. Such an oscillator can generate microwaves with high spectrum purity up to 75 GHz and many interesting capabilities such as subcarrier/clock recovery and microwave regeneration have been demonstrated. We propose a new function for this microwave oscillator, i.e., photonic microwave mixing for WDM systems.