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org/Xplore

An Optical Frequency Shifter Based on

High-Order Optical Single-Sideband Modulation
and Polarization Multiplexing
Xuan Li, Shanghong Zhao, Zihang Zhu, Kun Qu, Tao Lin and Shilong Pan, Senior Member, IEEE

 main drawback of these methods is that only a small frequency

Abstract—We propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel shifting can be obtained due to the limited bandwidth of the
electro-optic frequency shifter with frequency multiplication acousto-optic or thermo-optic modulators (below a few GHz).
operation based on high-order optical single-sideband (SSB) Another widely investigated method to realize an optical
modulation and polarization multiplexing using an integrated
frequency shifter is based on electro-optic effect [12]-[18]. For
dual-polarization quadrature phase shift keying (DP-QPSK)
modulator. By changing the DC bias phases of the modulator and example, an optical frequency shifter can be achieved by using
the phase difference between the input RF signals, two-high order the slant periodic-domain inversion of a Bragg-type
SSB modulation signals are generated from the two QPSK electro-optic traveling-phase grating (ETPG) [12]. This
modulators. After that, the two optical signals are polarization approach can provide wide tunable range for the frequency
multiplexed and then projected to one direction to remove the shifting of the generated signal (from few GHz to several tens
low-order sidebands while only the high-order sideband is
of GHz). However, the frequency shifting is determined by the
reserved. The scheme is numerically analyzed with the
modulation indices of the modulator for optimal operation. A angle between the device and the input light, which makes the
distinct advantage of this approach is the capability to generate a controlling and tuning operation complicated and difficult. To
frequency shifting with a continuous and ultra-wide tunable range obtain a flexible and accurate frequency shifting, the optical
(more than ±100 GHz), and the tuning operation is accurate, single-sideband carrier-suppressed (SSB-CS) modulation
simple and flexible. An experiment is carried out to achieve a technique is proposed [13]-[17], which can be realized by
frequency-doubled optical frequency shifter. A continuous
employing an Sagnac loop incorporating an electro-optic
frequency shifting ranged from -36 to 36 GHz is experimentally
verified. modulator [13], [14], a single-electrode Mach-Zehnder
modulator (MZM) followed by an optical filter [15], a
Index Terms—Single-sideband modulation, optical frequency dual-electrode MZM followed by a polarizing element [16], or
shifter, polarization multiplexing, microwave photonics. a simple quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) modulator [17].
However, the previous SSB-CS modulation schemes can only
generate a lower or upper first-order sideband, which makes the
I. INTRODUCTION frequency shifting and its tunable range still limited by the

O PTICAL frequency shifter is a key technique in

heterodyne interfering and optical frequency synthesizing,
and has wide applications in scientific measurement,
bandwidth of the modulator and microwave devices (usually
below 40 GHz). To overcome this problem, frequency
multiplication is highly desired when performing the optical
high-speed optical communication, optical sensors and lidar frequency shifting. Previously, a frequency-doubled optical
systems [1]-[8]. frequency shifter was reported by using cascaded ETPGs [18],
Various methods have been proposed and demonstrated to in which the frequency shifting of the generated optical signal
realize an optical frequency shifter. Generally, an optical was increased to 32.5 GHz with a 16.25 GHz RF signal.
frequency shifter can be achieved based on acousto-optic or Similarly, the key disadvantage of this approach is the
thermo-optic effects with compact integration [9]-[11]. The difficulty of the tuning operation.
In this paper, we propose a novel electro-optic frequency
shifter with frequency multiplication operation based on optical
This work was supported in part by the National Basic Research Program of
China (2012CB315705), the National Science Foundation of China (61571461, high-order single-sideband (SSB) modulation and polarization
61401502, 61422108, 61527820), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the multiplexing. The key component of the shifter is an integrated
Central Universities. dual-polarization QPSK (DP-QPSK) modulator, which consists
Xuan Li, Shanghong Zhao, Zihang Zhu, Kun Qu and Tao Lin are with the
School of Information and Navigation, Air Force Engineering University, of a 3-dB optical coupler, two QPSK modulators and a
Xi’an 710077, China. (Email: [email protected]) polarization beam combiner (PBC). Compared with the
Xuan Li is also with the Key Laboratory of Radar Imaging and Microwave previously proposed schemes, the new optical frequency shifter
Photonics, Ministry of Education, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and
Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016, China. has a changeable multiplication factor of 2 or 3, which can
Shilong Pan is with the Key Laboratory of Radar Imaging and Microwave achieve a frequency shifting beyond the operation bandwidth of
Photonics, Ministry of Education, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and the modulator and microwave devices. At the same time, the
Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016, China.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JLT.2016.2611018

0733-8724 © 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
 2

proposed shifter can provide a continuous and ultra-wide An electrical phase shifter (EPS) is employed to introduce a
tunable range for the generated frequency shifting as no optical phase difference of ij between the two RF signals applied to
or electrical filter is involved, and the tuning operation is the two sub-MZMs of the upper QPSK modulator. The two
accurate, simple and flexible. sub-MZMs have same DC bias phase of ș0 and the main-MZM
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In has a DC bias phase of șm. Then the optical signal at the output
Section II, the principle of this novel proposed optical shifter is of the upper QPSK modulator is given by
analyzed with theoretical and numerical investigation. Section ª j T2m jn Zt M º
§ T nS «e e » (2)
f
2 ·
III presents the experimental setup and results. Finally, the Eup t  Ein e jZ0t ¦ cos ¨ 0  ¸ J n m1 « T »
work is summarized in Section IV. 4 n f ©2 2 ¹ j m
«¬ e 2 e jn Zt M 'M »¼
To achieve the high-order SSB modulation, the nth-order
II. PRINCIPLE AND THEORETICAL INVESTIGATION sideband should be generated with the -nth-order sideband be
suppressed. Fig. 2 shows the calculated amplitude of second-
EPS
DP-QPSK Mod and third-order sidebands varying with the phase difference ij
MSG PA
when the DC bias phase șm is /2. It can be seen that, the
amplitude of the sidebands are changed periodically and the
PBC ±nth-order sidebands have opposite trend along with the
LD Pol variation of the phase difference, one of them can be totally
suppressed while the other keeps the maximum by setting a
proper phase difference ij. As a result, the high-order SSB
EPS
modulation can be realized by using a QPSK modulator.
Fig. 1. Schematic configuration of the proposed optical frequency shifter with 1.0
frequency multiplication operation (LD: laserdiode; MSG: microwave signal
generator; PA: power amplifier; EPS: electrical phase shifter; PBC: Normalized amplitude 0.8
polarization beam combiner; DP-QPSK Mod: dual-polarization quadrature
phase shift keying modulator; Pol: polarizer.
0.6
Fig. 1 shows the schematic configuration of the proposed
optical frequency shifter with frequency multiplication 0.4
operation, which consists of a laserdiode (LD), an integrated
DP-QPSK modulator and a polarizer (Pol). The linear polarized 0.2
light wave from the LD can be expressed as EineMȦ t, where Ein 0

n=-2 n=3 n=2 n=-3

and Ȧ0 are the amplitude and angular frequency of the light, 0.0
respectively. The light wave is sent to the DP-QPSK modulator, 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
which consists of a 3-dB optical coupler, two QPSK ij( )
modulators and a PBC, as shown in the figure. For actual Fig. 2. The calculated amplitude of second- and third-order sidebands varying
with the phase difference.
implementation and simple analysis, the two QPSK modulators
are identical and each of them consists of two identical To achieve the Nth-order SSB modulation, the following
sub-MZMs placed parallel in a main-MZM. For a single condition should be satisfied
sub-MZM of the upper QPSK modulator driven by an RF N 'M  T m 2k  1 S
signal, the modulated optical signal can be expressed by the (3)
Jacobi-Anger expansion as N 'M  T m 2kS
Where k is an integer. The condition can be satisfied by setting
1 ­° j ª«m1cos Zt M  T20 º» j «  m1cos Zt M  0 » ½
ª T º
2¼°
Em t Ein e jZ0t ®e ¬ ¼
e ¬ ¾ the parameters as
4 ¯° ¿° S S (4)
Tm , M 0, 'M
­ f j T0 §
jn ¨ Zt M  ¸
S·
½ 2 2N
°¦ © Then the output optical signal of the upper QPSK modulator
2¹
e 2
J n m 1 e ° (1)
1 ° n f ° can be expressed as
Ein e jZ0t ® 3S ·
¾
4 ° f  j 20
T §
jn ¨ Zt M  ¸ ° ª j S2 jnZt º
° ¦ » (5)
§ S·
 e J m e © 2 ¹ 2 j ¨ Z0t  ¸ f
§T nS · «e e
n 1 ° Eup t  Ein e © 4 ¹ ¦ cos ¨ 0  ¸ J n m1 « jn§ Zt  S · »
¯ n f ¿ 4 © 2 2 ¹ ¨ ¸
n f
« e © 2 N ¹ »
¬ ¼
1 f
§ T nS ·
 Ein e jZ0t ¦ cos ¨ 0 -
jn Z t M
¸ J n m1 e In the bottom QPSK modulator, the DC bias phases and the
2 n f © 2 2 ¹ phase difference between the two RF signals are identical to the
Here the insertion loss of the modulator is neglected, case of the upper QPSK modulator, but the modulation index is
m1 V/(2V ) is the modulation index, V is the amplitude of the different. As a result, the bottom QPSK modulator will generate
RF signal, V is the half-voltage of the sub-MZM, Ȧand ij are same order optical sidebands but with different powers.
the angular frequency and initial phase of the RF signal, The optical signals output from the two QPSK modulators
respectively, ș0 is the DC bias phase of the sub-MZM, Jn is the
are combined with orthogonal polarization states through the
nth-order Bessel function of the first kind.
 3

PBC. Then the orthogonally polarized signal puts into a make J0(m1)cosȕ+ sinȕ= 0, the output of the Pol can be finally
polarizer (Pol) with its principal axis oriented at an angle of ȕ to expressed as
one principal axis of the PBC. At the output of the Pol, the 1 j
S
E pol t
j Z  2Z t
Ein e 4 J 2 m1 cos E e 0 (9)
optical signal is given by 2
1 (6) As can be seen, the upper second-order sideband is generated
E t ª E t cos E  E t sin E º
2¬ ¼
pol up bott
while the carriers and other sidebands are suppressed, which
According to the analysis above, a frequency-doubled or obtains a positive frequency shifting of two times the frequency
frequency-tripled optical frequency shifter can be achieved of the RF signal. Similarly, a negative frequency-doubled
based on high-order SSB modulation and polarization frequency shifting can be realized by setting ș0=0, N=-2.
multiplexing, as shown in Fig. 3. Fig. 3(a) shows the principle Fig. 4 shows the simulated results of the frequency-doubled
to generate a positive frequency-doubled frequency shift signal. optical frequency shifter. Fig. 4(a) shows the positive
In the figure, the x and y directions represent the two principal frequency shifting while Fig. 4(b) shows the negative
axes of the PBC. At the output of the DP-QPSK modulator, the frequency shifting. In the simulation, the optical carrier has a
two second-order SSB modulation signals (optical carriers and wavelength of 1551.1 nm, the frequency of the RF signal is 10
upper second-order sidebands) from the two QPSK modulators GHz, the modulation index m1 is 1.50, the angle ȕ is -25.25°
are polarized along the x and y directions, respectively. Then and the phase difference ij is set as 45° and -45° respectively.
the Pol is utilized to project the two orthogonally polarized As can be seen, an upper or lower second-order sideband is
optical signals into one direction (\ƍ) for interference. When a generated, at the same time, higher order sidebands (two
proper angle ȕ is set, the optical carriers generated from the two fourth-order sidebands with equal power) are also appeared.
QPSK modulators will have equal power and opposite phase,
0 (a) 20GHz
which makes the optical carriers cancelled each other.
Therefore, only the upper second-order sideband is obtained, -20

Power (dBm)
and a positive frequency-doubled optical frequency shifting is
achieved. Fig. 3(b) shows the principle to generate a positive -40
frequency-tripled optical frequency shift signal. The third-order
SSB modulation will also generate two first-order sidebands -60
with different powers, but they can be suppressed
simultaneously while the upper third-order sideband reserved -80
by the polarization multiplexing and projecting operation.
y y
-100
y' y' y y' y' y' y y' 1549 1550 1551 1552 1553
ȕ ȕ
Wavelength (nm)
ȕ ȕ ȕ ȕ ȕ

f f f f 0 (b) 20GHz
Ȧ0 Ȧ0+2Ȧ Ȧ0+2Ȧ Ȧ0-Ȧ Ȧ0+Ȧ Ȧ0+3Ȧ Ȧ0+3Ȧ

-20
Power (dBm)

x x x x
(a) (b)
Fig. 3. The principle to generate positive (a) frequency-doubled and (b) -40
frequency-tripled frequency shift signals.
-60
For the frequency-doubled optical frequency shifter, the
parameters can be set as ș0=0, N=2. Then the output optical -80
signal of the Pol can be expressed as
1 ª j
S
º -100
E pol t  Ein e jZ0t « 2 J 0 m1  2 J 2 m1 e 4 e j 2Zt » cos E (7) 1549 1550 1551 1552 1553
4 ¬ ¼ Wavelength (nm)
S
1 ª j º Fig. 4. The simulated results of the generated (a) positive and (b) negative
 Ein e jZ0t « 2 J 0 m2  2 J 2 m2 e 4 e j 2Zt » sin E frequency-doubled frequency shift signals.
4 ¬ ¼
Where m2 is the modulation index of the sub-MZMs in the
For the frequency-tripled optical frequency shifter, the
bottom QPSK modulator. As can be seen, only the optical
parameters can be set as ș0 , N=3. Then the optical signal at
carriers and upper second-order sidebands are obtained when
the output of the Pol is given by
the higher order sidebands are neglected. To suppress the
ª § S
 j · j Z Z t º
optical carriers, the following condition should be satisfied « J1 m1 ¨ 1  e 3 ¸ e
0
»
S
(8) 1 « © ¹ »
J 0 m1 cos E  J 0 m2 sin E 0
j
E pol t  Ein e 4 « » cos E
(10)
4 § j
2S
·
Considering the complexity of the scheme, the «  J m ¨1  e 3
¸ e
j Z0  Z t
 2 J m e
j Z0  3Z t »
«¬ 1 1 © ¹
3 1
»¼
frequency-doubled optical frequency shifter can be further
ª § S
 j · j Z Z t º
simplified as the bottom QPSK modulator is not modulated by « J1 m2 ¨ 1  e 3 ¸ e
0
»
S
the RF signal but only properly DC biased to suppress the 1 j « © ¹ »
 Ein e » sin E
4
4 « § 2S
·
optical carrier terms in equation (7). By adjusting the angle ȕ to «  J m ¨1  e
j
3
¸ e
j Z0  Z t
 2 J m e
j Z0  3Z t »
«¬ 1 2 © ¹
3 2
»¼
 4

As can be seen, two first-order sidebands and the upper generated, as shown in Figs. 4 and 5. Therefore, the modulation
third-order sidebands are obtained when the higher order indices of the two QPSK modulators should be optimized to
sidebands are neglected. The two first-order sidebands can be make the generated signal has a high power and a large
suppressed simultaneously when the following condition is signal-to-distortion ratio (SDR).
satisfied For the frequency-doubled optical frequency shifter, only the
J1 m1 cos E  J1 m2 sin E 0 (11) modulation index of the upper QPSK modulator needs to be
Then the output optical signal of the Pol can be finally optimized. Assuming that the extinction ratio of the modulator
expressed as is infinite, then the fourth-order optical sidebands will be the
1 S dominate distortion sidebands in the generated signal. The SDR
E t
j
E e 4 ª J m cos E  J m sin E º e
j Z  3Z t (12)
pol
2
in ¬ 3 1 3 2 ¼
0
of the generated signal is given by
2
As can be seen, only the upper third-order sideband is ª 2J m º (13)
reserved, which realizes a positive frequency shifting of three SDR « jS 2 2 jS 1 »
times the frequency of the RF signal. Similarly, a negative ¬« e  e J 4 m1 »¼
frequency shifting with frequency-tripled operation can be Fig. 6 shows the calculated SDR of the generated signal
realized by setting ș0 , N=-3. varying with the modulation index of the modulator. As can be
Fig.5 shows the simulated results of the frequency-tripled seen, the SDR is larger than 20 dB when the modulation index
optical frequency shifter. Fig.5(a) shows the positive frequency is smaller than 2. The right axis of Fig. 6 shows the power of the
shifting while Fig.5(b) shows the negative frequency shifting. generated signal, which normalized by the maximum
In the simulation, the optical carrier has a wavelength of 1551.1 achievable power and the inset of Fig. 6 shows the angle ȕ
nm, the frequency of the RF signal is 10 GHz, the modulation varying with the modulation index. As shown in the figure,
index of m1 and m2 are 1.50 and 1.05 respectively, the angle of ȕ there is a tradeoff for the modulation index to obtain a
is 129.71° and the phase difference of ij is set as 30° and -30° frequency-doubled optical frequency shift signal with relatively
respectively. As can be seen, an upper or lower third-order high power and large SDR simultaneously. In this way, the
sideband is generated, at the same time, higher order sidebands modulator index of the upper QPSK modulator should be
(two fifth-order sidebands with different power) are also between 1 to 2.
60 0
appeared.

Normalized power (dB)

(a) 50
-20 30GHz 20
-10

ȕ (deg.)
0
40
-20
SDR (dB)
Power (dBm)

-40 -40
30 -20
0 2 4
m1
-60 20
-30
10
-80
0 -40
0 1 2 3 4
-100
1549 1550 1551 1552 1553 Modulation index m1
Wavelength (nm) Fig. 6. The calculated SDR and the normalized power of the generated signal
varying with the modulation index of the modulator. Inset: the angle ȕ varying
-20 (b) 30GHz with the modulation index.

For the frequency-tripled optical frequency shifter, both the

Power (dBm)

-40 modulation indices of the two QPSK modulators need to be

optimized. Assuming that the extinction ratio of the modulator
-60 is infinite, one of the fifth-order optical sidebands will be the
dominate distortion sideband in the generated signal, as shown
-80 in Fig. 5. The SDR of the generated signal is given by
2
­° J 3 m1 cos E  J 3 m2 sin E ½° (14)
-100
SDR ® jS 3 ¾
1549 1550 1551 1552 1553 ¯° 1  e ª¬ J 5 m1 cos E  J 5 m2 sin E º¼ ¿°
Wavelength (nm) Fig. 7(a) shows the contour line of the calculated SDR for the
Fig. 5. The simulated results of the generated (a) positive and (b) negative generated signal varying with the two modulation indices. As
frequency-tripled frequency shift signals.
can be seen, the SDR can be larger than 20 dB when both the
The power of the generated frequency shift signal is modulation indices are smaller than 2. Fig. 7(b) shows the
determined by the signal generated in the two QPSK contour line of the calculated power for the generated signal,
modulators and the projecting operation in the Pol, as shown in which normalized by the maximum achievable power. As
Fig.3. On the other hand, the higher order sidebands will be also shown in the figures, to obtain a frequency-tripled optical
frequency shift signal with relatively high power and large SDR
 5

simultaneously, the modulator indices of the two QPSK another path, a variable attenuator is employed to compensate
modulators should be set properly. the power imbalance of the two RF signals caused by the
5 insertion loss of the EPS. Another PC (PC2) combined with a
D SDR polarization beam splitter (PBS) works as a Pol to obtain
6'5 G% 
4 frequency shift signals. The optical signals are measured by an
Modulation indexm2

optical spectrum analyzer (OSA) (Yokogawa AQ6370C) with a

3 resolution of 0.02 nm.
Variable Attenuator

Divider
2 20 DC bias
MSG EPS
30
1
40
DP-QPSK Mod OSA
0 PC1 PC2
0 1 2 3 4 5 LD PBS
Modulation index m1 Fig. 8. Experiment setup for frequency-doubled optical frequency shifter (PC:
5 polarization controller; EPS: electrical phase shifter; PBS: polarization beam
E  1RUPDOL]HGSRZHU G%  splitter; OSA: optical spectrum analyzer).
Normalized powerr
Modulation index m2

4
Fig. 9 (a) shows the spectrum of the generated positive
frequency shift signal. As can be seen, the generated sideband
3 and the optical carrier have a frequency space of 10 GHz, which
-20 two times of the frequency of the RF signal. Due to the finite
2 extinction ratio of the modulator, the carrier and the lower
-30 second-order sideband are not totally suppressed, and the
1 -40 first-order sidebands are also generated, but the upper
-20
-40 -30 second-order sideband is 27 dB higher than the other frequency
0 components. Fig. 9 (b) shows the spectrum of the generated
0 1 2 3 4 5
Modulation index m1 negative frequency shift signal, the frequency of the generated
Fig. 7. The contour line of (a) the calculated SDR and (b) the normalized power sideband is 10 GHz smaller than the optical carrier, and the
of the generated signal varying with the two modulation indices. SDR of the generated signal is 25 dB, as shown in the figure.
The SDR is larger than the results reported in [13], [14] and
To adjust the frequency shifting of the generated optical [16], and it can satisfy the requirement of most applications
signal, only the frequency of the RF signal should be changed, [13] ,[15], [19], [20].
and the generated optical frequency shifting is two or three -30
times the frequency of the RF signal. Therefore, the frequency (a)
tuning operation of the proposed scheme is simple, flexible and -40 upper
second-order
accurate. The maximum frequency shifting range is three times
Power (dBm)

-50 sideband 27dB

the maximum frequency of the drive signal source and the
bandwidth of the modulator, which can reach 40 GHz in -60 carrier
laboratory environment. As a result, a frequency shifting from
more than negative 100 GHz to more than positive 100 GHz -70
can possibly be generated with the proposed scheme.
-80

III. EXPERIMENT SETUP AND RESULTS -90

1550.6 1550.8 1551.0 1551.2 1551.4 1551.6
An experiment for the generation of a frequency-doubled Wavelength (nm)
optical frequency shift signal is carried out as shown in Fig. 8. -30
In the experiment, a CW light is generated from an LD (Agilent (b)
N7714A) with a wavelength of 1551.1 nm and a power of 13 -40 lower
dBm. The light is adjusted by a polarization controller (PC1) second-order
25dB
Power (dBm)

and then sent to a DP-QPSK modulator (Fujitsu -50 sideband

FTM7977HQA) which has a half-wave voltage of about 3.5 V -60
and an optical insertion loss of 13 dB. An RF signal is provided
carrier
by a microwave signal generator (MSG) (Agilent E8257D) -70
with a frequency of 5 GHz and a power of 23.7 dBm. The RF
signal is split to two parts through an electrical power divider, -80
and then sent to two RF ports of the upper QPSK modulator. In -90
one path of the RF signals an electrical phase shifter (EPS) is 1550.6 1550.8 1551.0 1551.2 1551.4 1551.6
inserted to introduce a phase difference of 45° or -45°, while in Wavelength (nm)
 6

Fig. 9. The spectra of (a) the positive and (b) the negative frequency-doubled shifting of the generated signal can be simply tuned by
frequency shift signals.
adjusting the frequency of the RF signal, the scheme has good
tunability. It can also be seen that, the power of the generated
The optical loss of the frequency shifter is also investigated.
signals are different, this is caused by the operation bandwidth
The loss has three origins. The first kind is the insertion loss of
of the variable attenuator (DC-12 GHz) and the electrical
the optical components, including 13 dB loss of the modulator
divider (2-18 GHz).
and 7 dB loss of the two PCs and the PBS. The second kind is
40
the modulation loss in the modulator, which including the
normalized power loss of about 7 dB (modulation index at 1.5,
as shown in Fig. 6) and the minimum achievable power loss of 30
9 dB (maximum value of 1/2J2(m)2). The third kind is the

SDR (dB)
polarization project operation in the PBS, which is about 11 dB
20
(value of 1/2cos2ȕ). The modulation loss is in the same range
reported in [5] and [15] (16 dB and 17 dB, respectively). The
insertion loss is similar to the result in [15] (19 dB, including 6 10
dB of the modulator and 13 dB of the optical filter) but larger
compared to the result in [5] (7 dB of the QPSK modulator),
however, it can be decreased by selecting components with 0
-40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40
small insertion losses. On the other hand, the increment of the frequency shifting (GHz)
projection loss is the cost of achieving high-order optical Fig. 11. The experimental results of the SDR varying with the frequency
frequency shifting, and it is can be compensated by using an shifting.
optical amplifier followed by the PBS.
-30 Due to the finite extinction ratio of the modulator, carrier and
(a) 3 GHz other sidebands will also be generated and the SDR of the
6 GHz
-40 frequency shift signal will be deteriorated. Fig. 11 shows the
9 GHz
12GHz experimental results of the SDR varying with the frequency
Power (dBm)

-50
15GHz shifting of the generated signals. As can be seen, the SDR
-60 18GHz changed randomly, but a SDR higher than 20 dB can be
obtained when the frequency shifting is smaller than 30 GHz.
-70 The SDRs of the signals with frequency shifting of 36 GHz are
relatively small, this is because the cutoff frequencies of the
-80
variable attenuator and the electrical divider inducing a power
-90 decrement of the second-order optical sideband. When
1550.6 1550.8 1551.0 1551.2 1551.4 1551.6 electrical components with broader bandwidths are used, a
Wavelength (nm) larger frequency shifting with a higher SDR can be achieved.
-30
3 GHz (b) In the experiment, the long-term stability of the proposed
-40
6 GHz scheme is relatively poor, due to the drifting of the DC bias
9 GHz points in the integrated modulator. This problem can be
12GHz
Power (dBm)

-50 resolved by employing a DP-QPSK modulator Bias Controller

15GHz
18GHz (i.e. YY LABS Inc. D0158) in the system.
-60

-70 IV. CONCLUSION

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel scheme
-80
to generate frequency-doubled or frequency-tripled optical
-90 frequency shifter using an integrated DP-QPSK modulator
1550.6 1550.8 1551.0 1551.2 1551.4 1551.6 based on high order SSB modulation and polarization
Wavelength (nm) multiplexing. By changing the DC bias phases of the modulator
Fig. 10. The spectra of (a) the positive and (b) the negative frequency-doubled
and the phase difference between the input RF signals, positive
frequency shift signals with different input RF frequencies.
or negative frequency shifting with frequency multiplication
To verify the frequency tunability of the proposed scheme, can be achieved. The scheme is numerically analyzed with the
the frequency of the RF signal is tuned from 3 GHz to 18 GHz modulation indices of the modulator for optimal operation. The
while the other parameters keep unchanged. Figs. 10(a) and (b) SDR performance is theoretically analyzed and experimentally
show the spectra of the generated positive and negative investigated. Experiment results show that the scheme has good
frequency-doubled frequency shift signals, respectively. As tunability, it can generate a continuous frequency shifting
shown in the figure, one single sideband with a frequency space ranged from -30 to 30 GHz with a SDR higher than 20 dB. The
of two times the frequency of the RF signal is obtained while frequency tuning operation is simple, accurate and flexible.
the other sidebands are effectively suppressed. The frequency
 7

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