DAC-less PAM-4 signal generation using a thin-film lithium niobate dual-drive MZI modulator
In this study, we demonstrate DAC-less PAM-4 signal generation using a lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) dual-drive Mach-Zehnder modulator (DD-MZM). The modulator is driven by two independent binary streams, eliminating the need for power-hungry digital-to-analog converters (DACs). The high electro-optical (EO) bandwidth and excellent linearity of the LNOI modulator make it suitable for generating high-speed, equally spaced PAM-4 signals. Experimentally, PAM-4 signals were generated at rates up to 128 Gbps with an extinction ratio (ER) of 4.2 dB and a ratio of level separation mismatch (RLM) of 0.96. This work offers a novel, to the best of our knowledge, design approach for high-speed, high-linearity PAM-4 signal generation.
Authors
- Rui Cao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4444-7528)
- Huimin He (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1992-1750)
- Peng Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5232-7019)
- Haiyun Xue (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5007-3089)
- Fengman Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3579-1151)
- Yuqiang Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-9003-6310)
- Liqiang Cao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0859-1437)
- Siwei Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6568-6707)
Institutions
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Optics Letters
- Published
- 2025-05-05
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1364/ol.555642
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Photorefractive and Nonlinear Optics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.25
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Beijing Science and Technology Planning Project