Photonic-assisted high-order vector millimeter-wave signal generation enabled by DSM

Area of Science:

• Optoelectronics
• Wireless Communications
• Signal Processing

Background:

• High-order quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) is crucial for increasing data rates in wireless communications.
• Envelope detection of high-order QAM signals suffers from severe nonlinear distortion.
• Photonic generation of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) signals offers high bandwidth and capacity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and demonstrate a novel optical dual-single-sideband (dual-SSB) modulated 16384-QAM photonic vector mm-wave signal generation scheme.
• To address and mitigate the nonlinear distortion issues in high-order QAM signal envelope detection.
• To validate the proposed scheme through experimental transmission over optical fiber and a wireless link.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing delta-sigma modulation (DSM) for optical signal generation.
• Implementing a dual-single-sideband (dual-SSB) modulation technique.
• Generating a 40 GHz 16384-QAM orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) photonic vector mm-wave signal.

Main Results:

• Successfully generated a 40 GHz 16384-QAM OFDM photonic vector mm-wave signal.
• Transmitted the signal over a 25-km standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) and a 1-m wireless link.
• Achieved a bit error ratio (BER) at the hard-decision forward-error-correction (HD-FEC) threshold of 3.8 × 10^-3.

Conclusions:

• The proposed DSM-based dual-SSB modulation scheme effectively resolves nonlinear distortion in high-order QAM photonic vector mm-wave signal generation.
• The experimental demonstration confirms the feasibility and performance of the scheme for high-capacity wireless communication systems.
• This technique provides a viable solution for future high-frequency, high-data-rate wireless applications.