Seamless integration of fiber optic networks and millimeter-wave wireless access using nonlinear photo-detection scheme

It would be attractive if the functionality of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) wireless transmitters could be integrated in an existing fiber optic access network for signal transmission of baseband and/or intermediate frequencies. It would be further desired if one were able to utilize the optical signals in the network without any O/E or E/O conversions. We have pointed out that such seamless integration of mm-wave wireless accessibility to a fiber optic system can be implemented by the mm-wave photonic methods such as the optical feeding technique of mm-wave signals from distant local oscillators and the optoelectronic mixing technique at the photo-detection stage in an antenna base station. Furthermore, we have proposed and demonstrated experimentally that the requirement on the base station components for the seamless integration can be drastically relaxed by employing a novel optoelectronic mixing technique called nonlinear photo-detection.