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A simple image-reject mixer based on two parallel phase modulators

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Abstract

A simple photonic microwave image-reject mixer (IRM) using two parallel phase modulators is proposed. First, a photonic microwave mixer with phase shift ability is achieved using two parallel phase modulators (PMs), an optical bandpass filter, three polarization controllers, three polarization beam splitters and two balanced photodetectors. At the output of the mixer, two frequency downconverted signals with tunable frequency difference can be obtained. By adjusting the phase difference as 90° and utilizing an electrical 90° hybrid, the useless components can be eliminated, and the image reject operation is realized. The key advantage of the proposed scheme is the usage of PM, which avoid the DC bias shifting problem and make the system simple and stable. A simulation is performed to verify the proposed scheme, a relative − 90° or 90° phase shift can be obtained between the two output ports of the photonic microwave mixer, at the output of the IRM, 60 dB image-reject ratio is obtained.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 61571461) and (No. 61401502), Natural Science Foundation of Shan xi Province (No. 2016JQ6008).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Information and Navigation, Air Force Engineering University, Xi’an, 710077, China

    Dapeng Hu, Shanghong Zhao, Zihang Zhu, Xuan Li, Kun Qu, Tao Lin & Kun Zhang

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  1. Dapeng Hu
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  2. Shanghong Zhao
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  3. Zihang Zhu
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  4. Xuan Li
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  5. Kun Qu
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  6. Tao Lin
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  7. Kun Zhang
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Correspondence to Zihang Zhu.

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Hu, D., Zhao, S., Zhu, Z. et al. A simple image-reject mixer based on two parallel phase modulators. Opt Rev 25, 109–115 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10043-017-0400-5

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