A dual parallel Mach–Zehnder modulator linearization scheme based on 90° phase shifters

In this paper, a dual-drive dual-parallel Mach–Zehnder Modulator based linearization scheme is implemented by utilizing only two phase shifters and comprehensively demonstrated for a photonic transmission link. Third order intermodulation distortion is suppressed by adjusting angles of electrical phase shifters i.e. π/2 and−π/2 and a non-linear distortion immune system can be proposed for microwave photonic link. A complete suppression in intermodulation terms and 20.8 dB enhancements are found in spurious free dynamic range (SFDR). SFDR reaches 135.6 dB Hz4/5 by suppressing major spurious contributors of third order intermodulation distortions in optical domain only which ensures the improvement in performance of link against non-linear terms.

A photonic transmission link with enhanced dynamic range by incorporating phase shifters in dual drive dual parallel Mach–Zehnder modulator

A linearization scheme is proposed for microwave photonic link to enlarge spurious free dynamic range using a dual-electrode dual parallel Mach–Zehnder modulator (MZM). This scheme employs phase control method to improve performance of the link by adjusting phase of radio frequency (RF) signals and bias voltages of optical modulator. Optical single sideband modulation is achieved through sub-modulators of dual parallel MZM which increases efficiency of the link. The simulated results show that third order intermodulation distortion is suppressed by 28 dB when the input RF signals are 9.1 and 9.5 GHz and noise floor is at −161 dBm/Hz. The spurious free dynamic range is also improved by 12.6 dB.

Characterising the Performance of High-Speed Data Converters for RFSoC-based Radio Astronomy Receivers

RF system-on-chip (RFSoC) devices provide the potential for implementing a complete radio astronomy receiver on a single board, but performance of the integrated analogue-to-digital converters is critical. We have evaluated the performance of the data converters in the Xilinx ZU28DR RFSoC, which are 12-bit, 8-fold interleaved converters with a maximum sample speed of 4.096 Giga-sample per second (GSPS). We measured the spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR), signal-to-noise and distortion (SINAD), effective number of bits (ENOB), intermodulation distortion (IMD) and cross-talk between adjacent channels over the bandwidth of 2.048 GHz. We both captured data for off-line analysis with floating-point arithmetic, and implemented a real-time integer arithmetic spectrometer on the RFSoC. The performance of the ADCs is sufficient for radio astronomy applications and close to the vendor specifications in most of the scenarios. We have carried out spectral integrations of up to 100 s and stability tests over tens of hours and find thermal noise-limited performance over these timescales.

A 12-bit 40-MS/s SAR ADC with Calibration-Less Switched Capacitive Reference Driver

This paper presents a switched capacitive reference driver (SCRD) with a low-energy switching scheme. In order to reduce the performance degradation resulting from a signal-dependent voltage drop in a capacitive reference driver (CRD) without increasing the capacitance (CREF) of a CRD, the proposed SCRD utilizes the CRD for LSB conversion cycles. In MSB conversion cycles, a supply voltage is used as a reference voltage to save on area and power consumption. As such, the proposed SCRD significantly relaxes the required CREF, and does not necessitate bit weight calibration or compensation requiring an auxiliary capacitor-based digital-to-analog converter (CDAC). To evaluate the proposed SCRD, a prototype 12-bit 40-MS/s SAR ADC is fabricated in a 65 nm CMOS process. With near Nyquist frequency, the measured spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) of the SAR ADC with the SCRD is 80.6 dB, which is about a 16 dB improvement from the SFDR of a SAR ADC with a CRD only.

Third order intermodulation and third order intercept in a directly modulated Fabry–Perot laser diode

This paper presents measurement of third order intermodulation distortion and third order intercept (TOI) in a Fabry–Perot semiconductor laser lasing at 1550.3 nm when the laser is biharmonically bias-current modulated. Keeping the modulation current of one signal fixed, the third order intermodulation power at two different frequencies has been found to increase with the increase in second signal modulation power. There is an eventual crossover or tendency to crossover in the intermodulation characteristics when the modulation current amplitudes of the channels assume the same value. The TOI has been experimentally measured. The intermodulation power appearing at two different frequencies along with their signal power dependence and measurement of TOI constitute the outcome of this paper. The typical value of spurious-free dynamic range of the modulation scheme is 70 dB.