Sideband characteristic analysis of millimeter-wave generation based on optical carrier suppression

Abstract In this paper, we analyze the sideband performance of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) generated by the optical carrier suppression (OCS) method. Through adjusting the direct current (DC) bias of the Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM), we study the output optical signal powers at different orders bands, and the DC bias tolerance while the value of the carrier suppression ratio is not lower than 10 dB. The separated right sideband is modulated by 5 Gbit/s data, and then combined with the left sideband. The generated millimeter wave optical signal is transmitted over 20 km standard single mode fiber (SMF), and the received power penalty is only 0.28 dB.