Photonic generation of widely tunable phase-coded microwave signals based on a dual-parallel polarization modulator

A photonic approach for the generation of a widely tunable arbitrarily phase-coded microwave signal based on a dual-parallel polarization modulator (DP-PolM) is proposed and demonstrated without using any optical or electrical filter. Two orthogonally polarized ± first-order optical sidebands with suppressed carrier are generated based on the DP-PolM, and their polarization directions are aligned with the two principal axes of the following PolM. Phase coding is implemented at a following PolM driven by an electrical coding signal. The inherent frequency-doubling operation can make the system work at a frequency beyond the operation bandwidth of the DP-PolM and the 90° hybrid. Because no optical or electrical filter is applied, good frequency tunability is realized. An experiment is performed. The generation of phase-coded signals tuning from 10 to 40 GHz with up to 10  Gbit/s coding rates is verified.