Symmetry-Tunable Full-Duty Triangular-Shaped Waveform Generation Using a Simple Single-Drive Mach-Zehnder Modulator

A novel and simple photonic approach for generating symmetry-tunable full-duty triangular-shaped microwave waveforms is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. In this approach, a simple commercial single-drive Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) is adopted and driven by the radio frequency (RF) input. By properly presetting the RF modulation index and simply adjusting the direct current (DC) bias voltage of MZM, the full-duty triangular-shaped microwave waveforms with self-defined symmetrical coefficients can be obtained. A complete theoretical analysis on operation principle is presented and a proof-of-concept experiment is carried out. The full-duty triangular-shaped waveforms with tunable symmetrical coefficients at the repetition rate of 5 GHz are successfully generated. This approach features simple architecture, less variables, excellent reconfigurability and integrable capability, which are highly desired for the high-performance triangular-shaped waveform generator.