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Optics Letters

Wideband and low-error microwave frequency measurement using degenerate four-wave mixing-based nonlinear interferometer

Ziyi Lin, Zhirong Chen, Bin Zhang, Fan Li, Jianping Li, Xiaojie Guo, Zhaohui Li

Published Mar 29, 2019• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In this Letter, we report a wideband and low-error photonic instantaneous frequency measurement (IFM) system for microwave signals, which uses a nonlinear interferometer constructed with cascaded degenerate four-wave mixing (FWM) and in-between dispersion to introduce a tunable time delay. The microwave frequency is interpreted through interference of two idlers generated in cascaded FWM stages. This new approach allows parallel implementation of multiple IFMs without an overlap of idler wavelengths used for different IFMs, which is crucial to realize a wide frequency coverage and high accuracy without compromising the system practicality. A large, 40 GHz measurement bandwidth and a low measurement error of approximately 0.4% have been successfully achieved.

DOI
10.1364/ol.44.001848

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In this Letter, we report a wideband and low-error photonic instantaneous frequency measurement (IFM) system for microwave signals, which uses a nonlinear interferometer constructed with cascaded degenerate four-wave mixing (FWM) and in-between dispersion to introduce a tunable time delay. The microwave frequency is interpreted through interference of two idlers generated in cascaded FWM stages. This new approach allows parallel implementation of multiple IFMs without an overlap of idler wavelengths used for different IFMs, which is crucial to realize a wide frequency coverage and high accuracy without compromising the system practicality. A large, 40 GHz measurement bandwidth and a low measurement error of approximately 0.4% have been successfully achieved.
A cross-referenced and deadband-free method with photonic harmonic down-conversion is proposed for microwave frequency measurement based on cascaded-four-wave-mixing (CFWM) in semiconductor optical amplifiers. The proposed method enables ultra-wide and accurate frequency measurement with low-frequency spectrum detection, and at the same time achieves deadband-free and multi-tone frequency measurement by cross-referenced frequency discrimination. For a proof of concept, microwave signal measurement is experimentally demonstrated up to the 40 GHz frequency range with an 0.2-MHz measurement error. The frequency measurement features ease of configuration by only changing the low-frequency electrical local oscillators of the CFWM-based photonic harmonic down-converter.
Research on microwave signal measurement techniques is risen, driven by the expanding urgent demands of wireless communication, global positioning systems, remote sensing and 6G networks. In stark contrast with traditional electronic-based realization, the implementations of microwave signal measurement systems based on integrated compact photonic chip have exhibited distinct advantages in high operation bandwidth, light weight, and strong immunity to electromagnetic interference. However, although numerous integrated microwave photonic signal measurement systems have been reported, measurement bandwidth of the majority of them is still below 30 GHz due to the bandwidth limitation of electro-optical modulators (EOMs). Furthermore, previous studies often are more focused on the measurement of one single parameter (typically the frequency) of microwave signals, which has hindered their practical application in complex situations. Here, an integrated photonic microwave multi-parameter measurement system composed of microwave frequency measurement module and microwave phase amplitude measurement module based on thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) platform is reported. Utilizing this system, not only the ultra-high bandwidth (up to 60GHz) of microwave frequency, phase and amplitude measurement with low root-mean-squares errors (450MHz, 3.43° and 1.64% of the measurement for frequency, phase and amplitude, respectively), but also the time-domain reconstruction of sinusoidal microwave signals is achieved. This demonstration further broadens the application of integrated TFLN photonic devices in microwave signal measurement technology to address the bandwidth bottleneck of the ever-growing microwave networks in the future information society.
We investigate highly efficient frequency-degenerate parametric generation through inverse four-wave-mixing (IFWM) in silicon nanowaveguides, which exhibits distinctly from traditional FWM phenomenon and manifests itself as a unique process producing signal and idler photon pairs with frequencies at the center of two pumps. The influences of dispersion, nonlinear coefficient and frequency detuning on the IFWM process are numerically analyzed in detail. On this basis, the optimal condition for high gain IFWM and the nanowaveguide with high nonlinearity and large normal dispersion are proposed. These results substantiate the feasibility of such frequency-degenerate parametric generation in CMOS-compatible integrated platforms, which could find important potential in signal-processing systems for photonics networks and entangled qubits generation for quantum optics.
Using phase control between four-wave mixing (FWM) and six-wave mixing (SWM) channels in a four-level atomic system, we demonstrate temporal and spatial interferences between these two nonlinear optical processes. Efficient and coexisting FWM and SWM signals are produced in the same electromagnetically induced transparency window via atomic coherence. The temporal interference has a femtosecond time scale corresponding to the optical transition frequency. Such studies of intermixing between different order nonlinear optical processes with a controllable phase delay can have important applications in high-precision measurements, coherence quantum control, and quantum information processing.
Based upon two cascade four-wave mixing processes in two identical hot rubidium vapor cells, a nonlinear interferometer has been experimentally realized [Jing et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 99, 011110 (2011); Hudelist et al., Nat. Commun. 5, 3049 (2014)]. It has a higher degree of phase sensitivity than a traditional linear interferometer and has many potential applications in quantum metrology. Phase locking of the nonlinear interferometer is needed before it can find its way into applications. In this letter, we investigate the experimental implementation of phase locking of the relative phase between the three beams at different frequencies involved in such a nonlinear interferometer. We have utilized two different methods, namely, beat note locking and coherent modulation locking. We find that coherent modulation locking can achieve much better phase stability than beat note locking in our system. Our results pave the way for real applications of a nonlinear interferometer in precision measurement and quantum manipulation, for example, phase control in phase-sensitive N-wave mixing process, N-port nonlinear interferometer and quantum-enhanced real-time phase tracking.
Wideband frequency-hopping measurement is crucial for the stable operation of frequency-hopping communication systems. Traditional digital signal processing methods based on the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem are limited by bandwidth. Although compressed sensing reduces the sampling rate for analog-to-digital converters, its reliance on high-speed pseudo-random sequences restricts practical applications. In this paper, we propose a wideband frequency-hopping measurement method based on quantum compressed sensing, which enables dynamic capture of wideband frequency-hopping signals. By utilizing coherent state as quantum resources and mapping frequency-hopping signal onto photonic wave functions via an electro-optical modulator, a compressive measurement system is constructed that leverages the inherent randomness of coherent photon measurement collapse, and successfully achieved measurement and reconstruction of a frequency-hopping signal with 5 GHz bandwidth and a hopping rate of 100 kHop/s. A high data compression ratio of 2.1 × 10 3 was attained at a frequency-hopping rate of 1 kHop/s. By integrating time-frequency analysis methods with Bayesian optimization algorithm for frequency-hopping parameter estimation, a time estimation accuracy of 1 μs is achieved. Our research offers what we believe to be a new solution for wideband frequency-hopping measurement and can be extended to various fields such as radar and cognitive radio.