Reconfigurability Analysis of Single and Dual Wavelength Millimeter Wave Photonic Generation Techniques

Optimizing the operating conditions of a Mach-Zhender modulator (MZM) for different design requirements has drawn considerable research interests due to its key role as an electro-optic (EO) interface in hybrid access radio-over-fiber networks. In this work, we compare the modulation efficiency and the bit error rate (BER) performances of single and dual-wavelength-modulated millimeter-wave (MMW) photonic generation techniques which rely on MZMs as EO modulators. Simulation results show that although both techniques are functionally equivalent and possess the same implementation complexity, the dual wavelength modulation of a typical MZM can potentially improve the BER performance by three orders of magnitude compared to the single wavelength approach.