Idler-free photonic microwave mixer using a broadband optical source and cascaded phase modulators

A method of all-optical microwave mixing and bandpass filtering is proposed to achieve idler-free RF frequency conversion based on cascaded phase modulation of a broadband optical source. The variable optical carrier time-shift method is employed to selectively generate the desired RF mixing components and highly suppress the other idler frequencies. An experimental system that can perform idler-free fundamental and harmonic RF upconversions is demonstrated, and the conversion efficiency is investigated both theoretically and experimentally.