Photonic Millimeter Wave Generation and Stabilization in Optically Injected Discrete-Mode Semiconductor Lasers Subject to Photonic Filter Feedback

Photonic millimeter wave signal generation and stabilization based on nonlinear dynamics of optically injected discrete-mode semiconductor lasers with photonic filter feedback are experimentally and numerically studied. The photonic filter is constructed by jointing two ports of a 2 × 2 optical coupler to form a ring cavity recirculation and is modelled as an infinite impulse response filter. The results show that >30GHz photonic millimeter wave signals can be obtained after optical to electrical conversion of the period-one oscillation output of the optically injected discrete-mode semiconductor laser. More importantly, the linewidth, side peak suppression ratio, as well as the stability of the generated millimeter wave, can be optimized using the photonic filter feedback. A fair comparison of the photonic filter feedback scheme and the single/double optical feedback schemes in terms of optimization performance has been made. The corresponding results demonstrate that the photonic filter feedback scheme has obvious superiority in millimeter wave side peak suppression and stability. The effect of the coupling coefficient as well as the phase variables in the ring cavity has also been discussed in the simulation work and the results qualitatively agree with the experimental observations.