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Optics Express

Remote broadband RF signal down-conversion with stable phase and high efficiency using a sideband optical phase-locked loop

Baiyu Li, Wei Wei, Daming Han, Weilin Xie, Yi Dong

Published Apr 3, 2020• 9 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We propose a phase-stable high-efficiency down-conversion approach for broadband radio frequency signals transmitted from a remote site. A high power coherent optical local oscillator signal is used at the local site to increase the conversion gain and the spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) at the same time. A sideband optical phase-locked loop ensures the suppression of the phase noise induced by the fiber transmission and the relative frequency drift of the remote and local lasers, which are essential for the signal transmission and the down-conversion. We first experimentally demonstrate the down-conversion of a single frequency signal at 16.45 GHz to a 250 MHz intermediate frequency (IF) signal with 3 dB gain and 103 dB/Hz 2/3 SFDR after 10 km fiber transmission. Then we show the broadband down-conversion capability by down-converting a 1 GHz wide linear frequency modulated pulse signal centered at 11 GHz to 1 GHz with 3 dB gain. Along with a positive gain, the SFDR of the IF signal down-converted from 5 GHz to 40 GHz has reached 97.6 dB/Hz 2/3 on average. This approach is suitable for weak broadband remote signal down-conversion with a simple-structured remote end.

DOI
10.1364/oe.390964

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We propose a phase-stable high-efficiency down-conversion approach for broadband radio frequency signals transmitted from a remote site. A high power coherent optical local oscillator signal is used at the local site to increase the conversion gain and the spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) at the same time. A sideband optical phase-locked loop ensures the suppression of the phase noise induced by the fiber transmission and the relative frequency drift of the remote and local lasers, which are essential for the signal transmission and the down-conversion. We first experimentally demonstrate the down-conversion of a single frequency signal at 16.45 GHz to a 250 MHz intermediate frequency (IF) signal with 3 dB gain and 103 dB/Hz 2/3 SFDR after 10 km fiber transmission. Then we show the broadband down-conversion capability by down-converting a 1 GHz wide linear frequency modulated pulse signal centered at 11 GHz to 1 GHz with 3 dB gain. Along with a positive gain, the SFDR of the IF signal down-converted from 5 GHz to 40 GHz has reached 97.6 dB/Hz 2/3 on average. This approach is suitable for weak broadband remote signal down-conversion with a simple-structured remote end.
We demonstrate a photonic radio-frequency transmission system via optical fiber. Optical radio-frequency signal is generated utilizing a Mach-Zehnder modulator based on double-side-band with carrier suppression modulation scheme. The phase error induced by optical fiber transmission is transferred to an intermediate frequency signal by the dual-heterodyne phase error transfer scheme, and then canceled by a phase locked loop. With precise phase compensation, a radio frequency with high-phase stability can be obtained at the remote end. We performed 20.07-GHz radio-frequency transfer over 100-km optical fiber, and achieved residual phase noise of -65 dBc/Hz at 1-Hz offset frequency, and the RMS timing jitter in the frequency range from 0.01 Hz to 1 MHz reaches 110 fs. The long-term frequency stability also achieves 8×10(-17) at 10,000 s averaging time.
In this Letter, we propose a fiber-optic radio frequency (RF) transfer based on active phase noise compensation adopting a carrier suppressed double-sideband (CSDSB) signal. The forward CSDSB signal is generated based on the transmitted RF signal at the local site to discriminate from the backward RF signal. The forward and backward signals are transmitted over the same fiber with the same wavelength to guarantee the bidirectional propagation symmetry. The impact of backscattering is efficiently suppressed by electrical filtering at the sites. A 1 GHz signal transfer over a 40 km optical link is performed in a laboratory. The results show that the proposed scheme can improve the short-term stability from 1.9 e-13/s to 3.9 e-14/s in contrast to the scheme with backscattering while reaching a long-term stability of 2.0 e-16/10000 s.
In this paper, we propose a phase-conjugation-based fast radio frequency (RF) phase auto stabilization technique for long-distance fiber delivery. By phase conjugation at the center site, the proposed scheme pre-phase-promotes the RF signal with the shift which is acquired by round-trip transferring another RF whose frequency is half of the one to be sent. Such phase pre-promotion is then used to counteract exactly the following retard induced by one-way delivery. Different from the previous phase-locking-loop-based schemes, the proposed open-loop design avoids the use of any tunable parts and dynamic phase tracking, enabling a fast phase stabilization at the remote site. An end-less compensation capacity can also be achieved. Our design is analyzed by theory. Experimentally, the new scheme is verified by transferring a frequency of 2.42 GHz through a 30-km optical fiber link. Significant phase drift compression is observed. The rapid phase stabilization is verified by introducing sudden time delay change into the link. The recovery time equals to the round-trip time of the link plus the transitional duration of the delay change, which is much shorter than the traditional trial-and-error phase locking loop. Important issues of the system design are discussed.
We propose a passive compensation fiber-optic radio frequency (RF) transfer scheme with a nonsynchronized RF stable source during a round-trip time, which can avoid high-precision phase-locking and efficiently suppress the effect of backscattering only using two wavelengths at the same time. A stable frequency signal is directly reproduced by frequency mixing at the remote site. The proposed scheme is validated by the experiment over a 40 km single mode fiber spool using nonsynchronized common commercial RF sources. The influence of the stability of nonsynchronized RF sources on the frequency transfer is investigated over different length fiber links.
Coherent Regeneration of Optical Frequency with 1-s Instability at 10−1710^{-17}10−17
The remote regeneration of coherent optical frequency technique finds increasing applications in the fields of large-scale optical clock networks, precision spectroscopy, very-long baseline interferometry, and high-sensitivity tests of fundamental physics. Meanwhile, with the improvements of coherent optical frequency generation, the requirement of stable transfer is more and more demanding. Here, we demonstrate a regeneration system of coherent optical frequency based on bidirectional phase locking, in which the locking loop at the local site is for eliminating optical phase noise over the link, and the locking loop at the remote site is for locking to the incoming coherent optical frequency. Preliminary experiment over a 1.5 km fiber link indicates that the additional frequency stability can reach5.9×10−17\mathbf{5.9}\times \mathbf{10}^{-\mathbf{17}}5.9×10−17and7.0×10−19\mathbf{7.0} \times \mathbf{10}^{-\mathbf{19}}7.0×10−19at an averaging time of 1 s and 103s, respectively. This method can be further extended to remote optical frequency comparisons for multiple users.
In this Letter, we propose a fiber-based stable radio frequency transfer system by a hybrid frequency modulation scheme. Creatively, two radio frequency signals are combined and simultaneously transferred by only one laser diode. One frequency component is used to detect the phase fluctuation, and the other one is the derivative compensated signal providing a stable frequency for the remote end. A proper ratio of the frequencies of the components is well maintained by parameter m to avoid interference between them. Experimentally, a stable 200 MHz signal is transferred over 100 km optical fiber with the help of a 1 GHz detecting signal, and fractional instability of 2×10(-17) at 10(5) s is achieved.