Generation of Carrier and Odd Sidebands Suppressed Optical MM-Wave with Signal Only on One Sideband Using an External Integrated Mach-Zehnder Modulator

A novel scheme to generate millimeter (mm)-wave is proposed where the quadrupling of local radio frequency is formed by using an external integrated Mach-Zehnder modulator through intensity modulation or phase modulation. Generated optical mm-wave signal suffers from neither power periodical fading nor time shift of the sidebands as it is transmitted along the fiber. Receiver sensitivity of our 10Gbit/s radio-over-fiber system based on the proposed scheme is -28.3dBm under intensity modulation while -24dBm under phase modulation after 65km transmission, and bit error rate is at 10^-4 level after 100km transmission. Optical carrier in uplink is provided by the central station to simplify the base station, which also reduces the cost of the base station.