A Novel Optoelectronic Oscillator Based on Brillouin-Induced Slow Light Effect

A novel optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) using a phase modulator is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. A carrier phase shift technique based on Brillouin-induced slow light effect is used to realize a conversion from phase modulation to intensity modulation. Two kinds of pump structures for producing large nonlinear phase shifts, a single-pump structure and a dual-pump structure, are investigated. As a comparison, the single-sideband phase noises of the single-pump and dual-pump OEOs are measured, respectively. The experimental results indicate that the single-pump OEO exhibits better phase noise performance near carrier than the dual-pump OEO. The maximum fractional frequency deviation of both types of OEOs is about ±0.85 ppm over 5000 s. The proposed scheme can be widely used in stable microwave or millimeter wave generation.