Abstract
When used in the analog RF photonics links, frequency modulation (FM ) offers a benefit of larger SIN ratio compared to intensity (IM ) modulation. Large FM gain had been achieved in an analog links comprising a FM diode laser and an optical FM discriminator.1 The frequency discriminator converts an FM signal into IM one so that direct (incoherent ) detection can be employed. The linearity of the discriminator response is pivotal to achieving a high performance of the link, characterized by a high FM gain and low distortion. The most common FM discriminator, an unbalanced Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI), is simple and integratable,2 but pos-esses inherently large third order harmonic distortion that restricts the dynamic range of the link. Other approaches using chirped gratings or MZI combinations3 do reduce nonlinearity, but increase complexity and severely reduce bandwidth. We propose a FM discriminator, consisting of MZI with ring resonators in its arms, in which the third-order inter-modulation distortion is completely cancelled; yet the bandwidth is hardly affected.
© 2002 Optical Society of America
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