Microwave photonic mixer with high spurious-free dynamic range

A new linearized photonic mixer structure, which can fully eliminate the third-order intermodulation distortion, is presented. It is based on an integrated dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder modulator to which an optimized RF split and an optimized optical phase shift are applied, in series with a Mach-Zehnder modulator driven by the LO. The mixer achieves a very high spurious-free dynamic range performance, it enables essentially infinite isolation between the RFand LO ports, and it has the ability to function over a multioctave frequency range. Experimental results demonstrate a record measured spurious free dynamic range performance of 127 dB · Hz4/5, which is over 22 dB higher than that of the conventional dual-series Mach-Zehnder modulator-based microwave photonic mixer. © 2014 Optical Society of America.