Abstract
We propose an approach to generating nonlinear frequency-modulated (NLFM) microwave waveforms, which is based on controlled period-one (P1) dynamics of an optically injected semiconductor laser (OISL). When the optical injection is modulated, the OISL, which originally operates at a P1 oscillation state, acts as a microwave voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO). In the proposed system, the microwave frequency output depends closely on the optical injection strength controlled by the modulation voltage input, while the electrical modulation signal required to generate a desired NLFM microwave waveform can be calculated on the basis of the “voltage-to-frequency” transfer function of the established VCO system. Our simulations and experiments demonstrate that both single-chirp and dual-chirp NLFM microwave waveforms can be readily generated with a bandwidth up to 9 GHz. Considering peak-to-sidelobe ratio (PSLR) of the compressed pulses, the NLFM signals generated by the VCO exhibit a practical improvement of ∼13 dB when compared with LFM signals with the same bandwidth, and the tunability of the generated NLFM signals is also experimentally demonstrated.
© 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement
1. Introduction
Microwave arbitrary waveforms have extensive applications in the fields of radar, communications, electronic warfare and modern instrumentation [1,2]. Due to the advantages of the high speed, large bandwidth, low loss, fast tunability as well as reconfigurability, photonic-assisted microwave waveform generation has become a hot research topic in recent years [3]. In radar systems, linear frequency-modulated (LFM) microwave waveforms with a large time-bandwidth product (TBWP) have been widely applied, since they can achieve an improved range resolution through pulse compression [4–9]. However, the compressed pulse of an LFM signal after matched filtering has a low peak-to-sidelobe ratio (PSLR), which might mask the returning echo of a target adjacent to the main target. To deal with this problem, nonlinear frequency-modulated (NLFM) microwave waveform has been introduced [10,11]. A NLFM signal has a faster frequency sweep rate at the pulse edges and a slower frequency sweep rate at the pulse center, leading to a better PSLR after pulse compression. Thus, a NLFM signal is very promising in increasing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the dynamic range of radar systems [12]. Up to now, photonic generation of NLFM microwave waveforms has rarely been reported [13]. In [13], NLFM microwave waveform generation is demonstrated based on current modulation of a distributed feedback laser diode (DFB-LD) in a self-heterodyne scheme. Nevertheless, both bandwidth and tuning ability of the generated NLFM signal are limited.
Photonic microwave generation based on period-one (P1) nonlinear dynamics of semiconductor lasers has received great attention in microwave photonics [14–29]. After proper optical injection, the P1 oscillation state can be excited through undamping the relaxation resonance, and the P1 oscillation frequency of an optically injected semiconductor laser (OISL) can be tuned from a few GHz to over 100 GHz through simply adjusting the injection parameters. Specifically, for a fixed master-slave detuning frequency, the P1 frequency would increase approximately linearly with the injection strength over a large range. Various types of microwave signals have been successfully generated by using P1 oscillation states, including single-frequency microwave signals [14–20], microwave frequency combs [21,22], triangular pulses [23], frequency-hopping sequences [24] and frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) signals [25–29]. In [29], generation of LFM signal with a large TBWP has been realized based on an OISL.
In this paper, photonic generation of NLFM microwave waveforms based on controlled P1 dynamics of an OISL is demonstrated theoretically and experimentally. When operating at a P1 oscillation state, the semiconductor laser subjected to modulated optical injection is functioned as a microwave voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), that is, the microwave frequency output is related to the optical injection strength, which can easily be controlled by the modulation voltage input. The electrical modulation signal required to generate a desired NLFM microwave waveform can be calculated according to the “voltage-to-frequency” transfer function of the established VCO system. Both single-chirp and dual-chirp NLFM microwave waveforms are generated with a bandwidth up to 9 GHz. Compared with LFM signals with the same bandwidth, the generated NLFM signals have a ∼13-dB improvement in PSLR of the compressed pulses. In addition, the tunability of the generated NLFM signals is also experimentally demonstrated. The proposed photonic NLFM signal generator may find wide applications in radar systems, such as weather radar and long-range early warning radar.
2. Experimental setup
Figure 1 provides the schematic diagram of the proposed NFLM microwave signal generator based on controlled P1 dynamics of semiconductor lasers. A commercial single-mode DFB-LD (Wuhan69 BF14) driven by a low noise current-temperature controller (Throlabs ITC4001) is served as the slave laser (SL). Under a bias current of 24 mA (∼3 times of its threshold) and a stabilized temperature of 25°C, the free-running wavelength and output power of the SL are 1551.432 nm and 5.7 mW, respectively. A tunable laser (Agilent N7714A) is applied as the master laser (ML). Its output power and wavelength are set to 20 mW and 1551.416 nm. A continuous-wave (CW) light from the ML is injected to the SL after passing through a variable attenuator (VA), a 10-Gb/s Mach–Zehnder modulator (MZM, Sumitomo Co.), a polarization controller (PC) and an optical circulator (CIR). Here, the VA is used to achieve the suitable injection strength to excite P1 dynamics, and the PC is inserted before the CIR to align the polarization of the injection light with that of the slave laser to maximize the injection efficiency. An electrical modulation signal V(t) from a 120-MHz arbitrary waveform generator (AWG, Agilent 81150A) is used to drive the MZM for rapid variation of the optical injection strength. The output of the injected SL is exported through port 3 of the CIR. A 90/10 fiber coupler (FC) is inserted to tap 10% of the signal power to monitor the optical properties in an optical spectrum analyzer (OSA, Ando AQ6317B). The other 90% of the SL output is sent to a 30-GHz photodetector (PD, Optilab PD-30) before measurement in a 20-GHz real-time oscilloscope (OSC, LeCroy 820Zi-B).
When operating at P1 oscillation state, the semiconductor laser subjected to modulated optical injection is modeled as a microwave VCO. In the system, the microwave frequency output is related to the optical injection strength, which can easily be controlled by the modulation voltage input. First, the “voltage-to-frequency” transfer function of the established VCO system can be characterized. Then, a specially shaped modulation signal V(t) is calculated according to the transfer function. When the suitable V(t) is applied, a desired NLFM microwave waveform can be generated.
3. Numerical simulations
3.1 Simulation model
Our proposed scheme is verified by analyzing the dynamical behavior of the OISL consisting of an SL subjected to optical injection from an ML, which can be modeled by the modified Lang-Kobayashi rate equations [20,25]:
In the numerical simulations, a fourth-order Runge-Kutta algorithm is used to solve Eqs. (1)-(3) with a time step of 1 ps. The parameter values of the SL used here are listed as follows [20]: γc = 5.36 × 1011 s-1, γs = 5.96 × 109 s-1, γn = 7.53 × 109 s-1, γp = 1.91 × 1010 s-1, b = 3.2, and J = 1.222.
3.2 Simulated results
By setting an optical injection with (fi, ξ0) = (6 GHz, 0.15) and Δφ = 0, the SL would operate at the P1 oscillation state. It has been proved that, for certain fixed master-slave detuned frequencies, the P1 oscillation frequency fm would almost monotonically increase with the injection strength ξ0 [29,30]. When the input modulation signal V(t) is applied, the output microwave frequency, equal to P1 oscillation frequency fm(t), can be expressed as:
The proposed scheme is then extended to generate dual-chirp LFM and NLFM waveforms, which are useful in reducing the range-Doppler coupling [30]. As plotted in Fig. 3(a-i), a modulation voltage input with an amplitude of ∼2.4 V and a time period of 1 μs is applied. The corresponding temporal waveform and instantaneous frequency-time diagram are shown in Figs. 3(b-i) and 3(c-i), respectively. It is composed of two complementary linear chirp waveforms (with up- and down-chirp alternately) and has a bandwidth of 7 GHz. Likewise, one can also generate a dual-chirp NLFM microwave waveform with nonlinear up- and down-chirp alternately. Figure 3(a-ii) shows the required modulation signal with an amplitude of ∼2.4 V, and Fig. 3(b-ii) illustrates the generated dual-chirp NLFM microwave waveform. As can be seen from the instantaneous frequency-time diagram in Fig. 3(c-ii), it contains both NLFM up-chirp and down-chirp in the range of 15.7-22.7 GHz.
The pulse compression performance of the NLFM signal can be quantitatively evaluated by calculating its autocorrelation function and measuring its PSLR [29]. Figure 4 shows the autocorrelation function of both the dual-chirp LFM (shown in Fig. 3(b-i)) and the dual-chirp NLFM (shown in Fig. 3(b-ii)) signals. Generally, PSLR is defined as the ratio of the main lobe to the maximum sidelobe [10]. Here, we compare the remaining maximum side lobes of LFM and NLFM signals while keeping the same main lobe width. It is interesting to find from Fig. 4 that the generated NLFM signal demonstrates a ∼15-dB enhancement in PSLR, which is very promising in increasing the SNR as well as the dynamic range of radar systems. It is worth noting that the autocorrelation function of the dual-chirp LFM is similar to that of the single-chirp LFM, which is not shown here.
4. Experimental results
We carry out experiments for NLFM microwave waveform generation based on the above setup. Firstly, the modulation voltage input V(t) is not applied, and an optical injection of (fi, ξ0) = (2 GHz, 0.50) is introduced. Similar to the simulations, the injection strength ξ0 is defined as the amplitude ratio between the injected light and the free-running SL [30]. The blue dotted and green dashed curves in Fig. 5(a) describe the optical spectra of the ML and free-running SL, respectively. As shown by the red solid curve in Fig. 5(a), a typical P1 oscillation state with fm = 19.7 GHz is excited. Then, the OISL-based VCO system is characterized by measuring the relationship between the generated microwave frequency and the offset voltage of the modulation input, as shown in Fig. 5(b). It is obvious that the “voltage-to-frequency” relationship is not ideally linear, which is induced by the nonlinear transfer function of the injected SL and MZM [29,30].
When the input modulation signal V(t) is applied, the output microwave frequency, which is equal to P1 oscillation frequency fm(t), can be expressed as:
In order to compare with simulations, dual-chirp LFM and dual-chirp NLFM signals are also experimentally generated. Figures 7(a-c) are the corresponding V(t), the temporal waveform and the instantaneous frequency. As can be seen, both dual-chirp LFM and dual-chirp NLFM are successfully generated with a bandwidth of 7 GHz (from 10.3 to 17.3 GHz). In addition, the tunability of the bandwidth is also experimentally demonstrated. By setting the amplitude of the modulation voltage input V(t) to 2.0 or 2.6 V, the generated NLFM signals are shown in Fig. 8, whose bandwidth are 6 and 9 GHz, respectively, and the temporal period of 1 μs remains unchanged. It should be noted that the method can be used to generate NLFM waveforms with a higher frequency and/or a larger bandwidth, and the limitations mainly originates from the limited bandwidths of the oscilloscope and photodetector used in our experiment.
Finally, we evaluate the pulse compression performance of the experimentally generated dual-chirp NLFM signal (corresponding to Fig. 7 (b-ii)), whose autocorrelation function is calculated. To demonstrate the improvement of PSLR, the autocorrelation function of the dual-chirp LFM signal (corresponding to Fig. 7 (b-i)) is also computed for reference. As shown in Fig. 9, a 13-dB improvement of PSLR is found in the NLFM signal as compared to the LFM signal with the same bandwidth, which indicates a visibility more than twenty times better than the LFM case for a target adjacent to the main target is achieved. The experimental results coincide with the above simulations, confirming the feasibility of the proposed scheme for NLFM signal generation and thus for PSLR improvement.
5. Conclusion
In conclusion, a scheme for generating NLFM microwave waveforms is experimentally and theoretically demonstrated based on controlled P1 dynamics of an OISL. The feasibility of this OISL system as a microwave VCO is proved by building the relationship between the microwave frequency output and modulation voltage input. According to the measured “voltage-to-frequency” transfer function of the established VCO system, the electrical modulation signal required to generate a desired NLFM microwave waveform is calculated. It is shown that both single-chirp and dual-chirp NLFM microwave waveforms are generated with a bandwidth up to 9 GHz. Compared with LFM signals with the same bandwidth, the generated NLFM signals have a ∼13-dB improvement in PSLR of the compressed pulses. Furthermore, the tunability of the generated NLFM signals is also experimentally demonstrated. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of NLFM signal generation with an enhanced PSLR using OISLs, which is very promising in increasing the SNR as well as the dynamic range of radar systems.
Funding
Project of Key Laboratory of Radar Imaging and Microwave Photonics (Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics), Ministry of Education (RIMP2020001); Startup Funding of Soochow University (Q415900119, Q415900220).
Disclosures
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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