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European Frequency and Time Forum

High- Precision Frequency Transmission Based on IQ Modulation and Silicon Photonics

Yichen Wang, Fei Yang, Huimin Wu, Kang Cao, Jiawen Shi, Xiao Zhang

Published Jun 25, 2024• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We proposed and experimentally demonstrated a high-precision frequency transmission based on IQ modulation on silicon. The silicon photonic chip (SIPC) includes a photonic IQ modulator and some couplers. According to the calculated Allan deviation of discriminated phase, the stability of the 500MHz microwave frequency signal after EO-OE based on SIPC is$3.6\times 10^{-14}$@1s and$5.4\times 10^{-17}$@10000s. After 82km fiber link transmission, the transmission stability of 500MHz microwave frequency signal is$7.4\times 10^{-14}$@1s and$7.0\times 10^{-15}$@10000s separately. With the noise compensation of the fiber transmission, the stability of 500MHz microwave frequency signal is improved to$5.6\times 10^{-14}$@1s and$9.9\times 10^{-16}$@10000s respectively.

DOI
10.1109/eftf61992.2024.10722278

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We proposed and experimentally demonstrated a high-precision frequency transmission based on IQ modulation on silicon. The silicon photonic chip (SIPC) includes a photonic IQ modulator and some couplers. According to the calculated Allan deviation of discriminated phase, the stability of the 500MHz microwave frequency signal after EO-OE based on SIPC is3.6×10−143.6\times 10^{-14}3.6×10−14@1s and5.4×10−175.4\times 10^{-17}5.4×10−17@10000s. After 82km fiber link transmission, the transmission stability of 500MHz microwave frequency signal is7.4×10−147.4\times 10^{-14}7.4×10−14@1s and7.0×10−157.0\times 10^{-15}7.0×10−15@10000s separately. With the noise compensation of the fiber transmission, the stability of 500MHz microwave frequency signal is improved to5.6×10−145.6\times 10^{-14}5.6×10−14@1s and9.9×10−169.9\times 10^{-16}9.9×10−16@10000s respectively.
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.
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Optical clocks are considered as promising candidates for redefining the second in the International System of Units. Compared with microwave clocks, optical clocks are powerful tools for the fundamental research such as the constancy of the fundamental constants, the validity of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and the predictions of quantum electrodynamics. Recently two research groups have demonstrated the optical clocks with an unprecedented precision level of 10-18, which is two orders better than the present primary frequency standard. Using two Sr optical clocks and three Cs fountain clocks, SYRTE group has demonstrated the definition of second with optical clocks.#br#For redefining the second with optical clocks in the future, the optical clocks from the remote laboratories should have a high precision and the frequency of the optical clocks need to be transferred over a long distance, with extremely high precision. Unfortunately the conventional means of frequency transfer such as two-way satellite time and frequency transfer can reach a 10-16 level in one day which is far below the requirement for an optical clocks. Various methods have been developed to transfer optical frequency signal via optical fibers. Especially a research group from Germany has achieved a frequency transfer stability of 10-19 level in hundreds of seconds with a fiber length of 1840 km.#br#We demonstrate the recent development of optical frequency transfer over a 70-km fiber spool at National Time Service Center. The measurement shows that the compensation for the fiber noise is close to the limitation induced by the fiber delay for the Fourier frequency from 1 Hz to 250 Hz. The transfer stability (Allan deviation) of the fiber link is 1.2×10-15 in 1 s averaging time, and 1.4×10-18 in 10000 s. A preliminary test of the optical frequency transfer over a 100-km spooled fiber is achieved with a stability of roughly one order worse than the 71 km result, 5×10-15 in 1 s.#br#We demonstrate a new scheme of remote compensation for optical frequency transfer via fibers against conventional local compensation method. This new scheme has the advantage of great simplification of the local site, which can find applications in massive extension of star network. The key feature is that we transfer the mixture of the round-trip signal and local reference to the remote user’s end via an auxiliary fiber. At remote site, the fiber noise is measured and compensated by AOM2 accordingly.#br#Transfer stabilities of 13×10-15 in 1 s averaging time and 4.8×10-18 in 10000 s are achieved with the remote fiber noise compensation via a 25 km fiber spool. The demonstrated transfer stability is comparable to that obtained by the local fiber noise compensation method.#br#The future star fiber network of optical frequency transfer can benefit from this method, because the simpler local setup is required and even can be shared in the central site for multitudinous remote users.
As the main branch of microwave photonics, radio-over-fiber technology provides high bandwidth, low-loss, and long-distance propagation capability, facilitating wide applications ranging from telecommunication to wireless networks. With ultrashort pulses as the optical carrier, a large capacity is further endowed. However, the wide bandwidth of ultrashort pulses results in the severe vulnerability of high-frequency radio frequency (RF) signals to fiber dispersion. With a time-energy entangled biphoton source as the optical carrier combined with the single-photon detection technique, a quantum microwave photonics method in radio-over-fiber systems is proposed and demonstrated experimentally. The results show that it not only realizes unprecedented nonlocal RF signal modulation with strong resistance to the dispersion but also provides an alternative mechanism to distill the RF signal out from the dispersion effectively. Furthermore, the spurious-free dynamic ranges of the nonlocally modulated and distilled RF signals have been significantly improved. With the ultra-weak detection and the high-speed processing advantages endowed by the low-timing-jitter single-photon detection, the quantum microwave photonics method opens new possibilities in modern communication and networks.
Quantum photonic resources are critical for advanced applications such as quantum computation, communication, and information processing. Efficient generation and detection of quantum states, as well as reliable photon manipulation techniques, are essential for the development of practical quantum technologies. Integrated photonic platforms offer attractive solutions due to their stability, small device footprint, and improved power efficiencies. However, optical loss and environmental noise hinder their capability to transmit, measure, and detect quantum states with high accuracies. To tackle these limitations, we have developed robust solutions for quantum signal processing by leveraging infrastructures from telecommunications and integrated photonics. These approaches focus on the use of silicon-based photonic sources for entanglement generation in the time and frequency degrees of freedom, as well as chip- and fiber-based architectures for entanglement verification via quantum interference and tomography measurements. Our photonic schemes allow for high-dimensional entanglement processing, demonstrating their versatility in developing scalable and cost-efficient quantum signal processing platforms.