Generation of carrier and odd sidebands suppressed optical mm-wave with signal only on one sideband using an external integrated Mach-Zehnder modulator

A novel scheme to generate millimeter (mm)-wave is proposed where the quadrupling of local radio frequency is formed by using an external integrated Mach-Zehnder modulator through intensity modulation or phase modulation. Generated optical mm-wave signal suffers from neither power periodical fading nor time shift of the sidebands as it is transmitted along the fiber. Receiver sensitivity of our 10 Gbit/s radio-over-fiber system based on the proposed scheme is -28.3 dBm under intensity modulation while -24 dBm under phase modulation after 65km transmission, and bit error rate is at 10 level after 100 km transmission. Optical carrier in uplink is provided by the central station to simplify the base station, which also reduces the cost of the base station.