Generation of Arbitrary Waveform Based on Optical Frequency Comb Using a Dual Parallel Mach-Zehnder Modulator and an Optical Filter

Abstract

A scheme to generate optical arbitrary waveform based on a Dual Parallel Mach-Zehnder modulator (DPMZM) and an optical filter is proposed. One of the child MZMs (MZM-1) of the DPMZM is driven by the Ratio Frequency (RF) and DC bias voltage (Vbias-1), at the same time, the other child MZM (MZM-2) is driven by the RF multiplier and the DC bias voltage (Vbias-2). By adjusting the size of the RF driving voltages and the DC bias voltages, we can get a stable optical frequency comb with high side-comb suppression ratio (SCSR). Then optical frequency comb (OFC) matches with the tunable optical filter by adjusting the spectral line position and spacing, the waveforms of Gaussian, Trapezoid, square wave, sine, half-wave cosine and sinc-shaped pulse with a tunable repetition rate are generated.