A $W$ -Band Photonic Transmitter/Mixer Based on High-Power Near-Ballistic Uni-Traveling-Carrier Photodiode (NBUTC-PD)

In this letter, we demonstrate a W-band photonic transmitter/mixer fabricated by the flip-chip bonding of a high-power back-illuminated near-ballistic uni-traveling-carrier photodiode (NBUTC-PD) and an end-fire quasi-Yagi antenna on an AlN substrate. This end-fire and directional antenna design eliminates the need for the integration of an additional Si-lens into the antenna for directional power transmission. The high bias dependent nonlinearity of the integrated NBUTC-PD means that the bias modulation technique can be used to directly up-convert the intermediate-frequency signal to a millimeter-wave signal at W-band without using a costly high-speed optical modulator. A reasonable detected power (-17 dBm at 106 GHz) can be achieved with the demonstrated device with a high-output photocurrent (30 mA) and a low internal-conversion loss (-2.4 dB) between the radio-frequency and local-oscillator signals at W-band.

[1]  Tadao Nagatsuma,et al.  120-GHz wireless link using photonic techniques for generation, modulation, and emission of millimeter-wave signals , 2003 .

[2]  A. Hirata,et al.  Design and characterization of a 120-GHz millimeter-wave antenna for integrated photonic transmitters , 2001 .

[3]  Elvino S. Sousa,et al.  Antenna-sector time-division multiple access for broadband indoor wireless systems , 1998, IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun..

[4]  T. Nagatsuma,et al.  10-Gb/s millimeter-wave signal generation using photodiode bias modulation , 2006, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[5]  J.-W. Shi,et al.  Dynamic Analysis of High-Power and High-Speed Near-Ballistic Unitraveling Carrier Photodiodes at $W$-Band , 2008, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[6]  Gabriel M. Rebeiz.  Millimeter-wave and terahertz integrated circuit antennas , 1992, Proc. IEEE.

[7]  R. Waterhouse,et al.  A broadband planar quasi-Yagi antenna , 2002 .

[8]  Y. Lin,et al.  Near-Ballistic Uni-Traveling-Carrier Photodiode- Based V-Band Optoelectronic Mixers With Internal Up-Conversion-Gain, Wide Modulation Bandwidth, and Very High Operation Current Performance , 2008, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[9]  H.-G Bach,et al.  Integration Potential of Waveguide-integrated Photodiodes: Self-powered Photodetectors and sub-THz pin-Antennas , 2008, OFC/NFOEC 2008 - 2008 Conference on Optical Fiber Communication/National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference.

[10]  J.-W. Shi,et al.  High-speed, high-responsivity, and high-power performance of near-ballistic uni-traveling-carrier photodiode at 1.55-/spl mu/m wavelength , 2005, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[11]  Tatsuo Itoh,et al.  Miniature low-loss CPW periodic structures for filter applications , 2001 .

[12]  A. Hirata,et al.  120-GHz-band millimeter-wave photonic wireless link for 10-Gb/s data transmission , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.