Wideband Single-Sideband Suppressed-Carrier Modulation with Silicon Photonics Optical Filters

Optical single-sideband suppressed-carrier (SSBSC) modulation based on advanced silicon photonics (SiP) optical filter is experimentally demonstrated. Wideband frequency shift of 2 Gb/s modulated data over a 30 GHz range spanning from the X to the Ka bands with large side-mode suppression ratio up to more than 30 dB is reported. The scheme can potentially be updated for operation up to the mm-wave band and broadband signal modulation. The impact of the filter phase response is assessed by transmission over 60 km of standard single mode fiber of the generated SSB-SC signal which resulted in moderate power penalty of ~0.5 dB in respect to SSB-CS data obtained using commercial I-Q modulator. The scheme is simple and stable and suitable for realizing a photonic integrated circuit with minimized footprint by monolithic integration of the filter with phase/amplitude modulators and other functional elements in silicon-on-insulator technology.