Microwave Photonics Down Conversion Based on Optical Frequency Comb

A flexible and efficient multi-band microwave signal down-conversion scheme based on optical frequency comb (OFC) is presented and demonstrated. In the proposed scheme, we can achieve that microwave signal at 30GHz can be down converted to 3GHz (S band), 7GHz(C band), 11GHz (X band), 15GHz (Ku band), 19GHz(K band) and 23GHz (Ka band) signals simultaneously. By changing the spacing of OFC, microwave signal at 30GHz can be down converted to 2$\sim$12GHz intermediate frequency (IF) signals with a step frequency of 1GHz. The proposed method is proven to be flexible, low-cost and easily implemented, which can be applied in satellite communications and some other areas.