A Novel Single Sideband Suppressed-Carrier (SSB-SC) Technique for High Dynamic Range Analog Applications

Photonic links and networks offer numerous advantages to analog RF systems, and enable advanced performance in Naval aircraft analog RF systems: spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) exceeding 125 dB/Hz^2/3 with instantaneous bandwidth up to and exceeding 1GHz for operational frequencies from 0.1 to 20 GHz. IPITEK proposes a novel single sideband suppressed-carrier (SSB-SC) technique that offers a significantly larger SFDR than is possible using direct detection or conventional coherent detection. This technique uses the lowest transmitted power and attains the highest bit-rate efficiency of all techniques that are used to obtain high SFDR. The proposed SSB-SC transmitter is a photonic circuit ring laser oscillator that outputs only sideband optical power (that may be filtered to SSB only). The needed pump power is limited to the sum of sideband power and roundtrip cavity losses. We envision this high efficiency transmitter to be ultimately compacted into a hybrid photonic transceiver circuit composed of optimized transmitter and receiver components.