Multifunctional reconfigurable microwave photonic arbitrary waveform generator based on DP-MZM and polarization control

his paper presents a reconfigurable microwave photonic arbitrary waveform generator based on a dual-parallel Mach–Zehnder modulator (DP-MZM) integrated with a polarization control structure. The proposed system enables the flexible generation of both fundamental signal waveforms—such as triangular waves, square waves, and Sinc-Nyquist pulses—and complex vector RF signals, including dual-frequency phase-coded waveforms and complementary linearly chirped microwave waveform (LCMW) pairs, without altering the underlying system architecture. By cascading carrier-suppressed modulation with polarization manipulation, the system supports dynamic switching between frequency doubling and quadrupling, while simultaneously allowing independent tuning of the power and phase (in-phase/anti-phase) relationships of the Fourier frequency components with a 1:2:3 frequency ratio. Furthermore, leveraging the spectral shaping and time–frequency mapping capabilities of an optical frequency comb, the system concurrently synthesizes dual-frequency phase-coded signals and complementary LCMW pairs. The simulation results demonstrate that the normalized mean error in time domain for basic waveforms (e.g., triangular and square waves) remain below 5.17 %. The generated dual-frequency phase-coded signal achieves a pulse compression ratio (PCR) close to the theoretical limit of 13 and a peak-to-sidelobe ratio (PSR) better than 9 dB, maintaining robust decoding performance even under moderate DC bias drift and polarization leakage. The synthesized complementary LCMW pairs exhibit a PCR approaching 2000, indicating excellent performance. These findings highlight the system’s potential for deployment in multifunctional photonic radar and RoF applications.