Design and performance analysis of photonic mm-wave generation employing cascaded EAMs and a dual-parallel Mach–Zehnder modulator

Abstract The generation of high-frequency millimeter-wave (mmw) signals is a critical enabling technology for next-generation wireless communication systems, radar, and terahertz sensing applications. However, conventional electronic approaches face significant challenges in generating signals above 100 GHz due to bandwidth limitations, high cost, and poor spectral purity. Photonic mmw generation offers a promising alternative, yet many existing schemes rely on complex multistage configurations or require high-frequency RF sources, limiting their practicality and cost-effectiveness. In this paper, we propose and numerically demonstrate a compact photonic mmw generation scheme that achieves a 16× frequency multiplication from a 10 GHz RF drive to a 160 GHz signal using cascaded electro-absorption modulators (EAMs) and a dual-parallel Mach–Zehnder modulator (DP-MZM). The two EAMs are driven with a 90° phase shift and analytically modeled as a single effective phase modulator, while the DP-MZM is biased at the null point to suppress the optical carrier and generate odd-order sidebands. A dual-band optical filter comprising two Bessel filters with 1 GHz bandwidth isolates the desired ±8th-order sidebands, which beat at a PIN photodetector to produce a pure 160 GHz tone. The proposed system achieves a theoretical optical sideband suppression ratio (OSSR) exceeding 55 dB and an RF sideband suppression ratio (RFSSR) exceeding 68 dB.