Transparent Fiber–Millimeter-Wave–Fiber System in 100-GHz Band Using Optical Modulator and Photonic Down-Conversion

We demonstrate the first fiber–millimeter-wave–fiber system in the 100-GHz band using a low-loss optical modulator and direct photonic down-conversion technology. The utilization of a low-loss optical modulator for the direct conversion of a millimeter-wave signal to an optical signal significantly simplifies the millimeter-wave radio receiver because it includes only a radio front-end and an optical modulator. In addition, by adopting direct photonic down-conversion technology for simultaneous detection and down-conversion of the millimeter-wave signal to the microwave band, the fiber–radio receiver and subsequent digital signal processing can be considerably simplified. Using the proposed technologies, we successfully transmitted 32-/64-quadrature amplitude modulation orthogonal frequency division multiplexing and single-carrier signal with a line rate of 71.4 Gb/s and a net data rate of 53.7 Gb/s over a wired and wireless converged system consisting of two optical fiber links and a 20 m radio link at 101 GHz. The proposed system is promising for high-capacity, low-latency, and low-power consumption fiber-wireless transmission in beyond 5G networks.