Photonic-based reconfigurable microwave frequency divider using two cascaded dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder modulators

A photonic-based reconfigurable microwave frequency divider using two cascaded dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder modulators (DP-MZMs) is proposed. The first DP-MZM is driven by the input microwave signal, whereas the second DP-MZM is incorporated in an optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) loop and driven by the feedback signal. By properly setting the working conditions of the two DP-MZMs, the frequency of the input microwave signal is divided and the frequency-divided signal will oscillate in the OEO loop, with a tunable frequency-division factor determined by the bias conditions of the DP-MZMs. An experiment is performed. The reconfigurable microwave frequency divider is demonstrated with a frequency-division factor of 1.5, 2.5, 2, or 3, and the phase noise of the frequency-divided signals is also evaluated, which has an improvement of 3.22, 7.60, 5.80, or 9.49 dB at 10-kHz frequency offset, respectively, compared with that of the input microwave signals.