A reconfigurable photonic microwave mixer using a dual-polarization modulator

A novel reconfigurable photonic microwave mixer using an integrated dual-polarization binary phase shift keying modulator is proposed. In the modulator, one dual-drive Mach–Zehnder modulator (DMZM) is driven by an RF signal to perform optical single sideband modulation, while another DMZM is driven by a local oscillator (LO) signal. Thanks to the orthogonal-polarization property of the integrated modulator, the optical carriers from the two DMZMs can be cancelled out each other. By adjusting the phase difference of the two LO signals applied to the modulator and the bias phase of the DMZM, the photonic microwave mixer can be worked as a single sideband mixer or harmonic mixer. The scheme is simple, compact and filter-free. The reconfigurable photonic microwave mixer is verified by simulation. The results show that the electrical spurs suppression ratios for both the single sideband mixer and the harmonic mixer are 31 dB.