Photonic local oscillator development

In the receiver lab, we have developed a 200 GHz to 230 GHz local oscillator constructed from mostly commercially available 1550 nm laser communication components. Theoretical and experimental work show that the laser adds negligible phase noise to this photonic local oscillator system and that spectral purity and phase stability are similar to Gunn oscillator based local oscillator output. The optical path consists of a single 1550 nm diode laser, a lithium niobate optical phase modulator, a Mach Zehnder interferometer (MZI) with a free spectral range of 75 GHz, and a 160 GHz to 260 GHz photomixer whose output is connected to a horn antenna. All of the optical devices and connections are polarization maintaining, and the photomixer was designed and fabricated at the CCLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. The electrical path consists of a YIG synthesizer, operating in the frequency range 14-20 GHz, a frequency doubler, and a power amplifier connected to the RF port of the phase modulator. At the SMA on Mauna Kea, we incorporated the photonic LO into one element (Antenna 6) of a five antenna array for test observations of CO J=2-1 made towards the ultracompact HII region G138.295+1.555. Spectral features of comparable width occur on baselines with and without antenna 6, and noise increases with baseline length independent of antenna number. Continuum observations were also made toward the quasar 3c454.3 for a period of about one hour. In summary, the SMA has proven that the photonic local oscillator operates with adequate phase and frequency stability for radio-interferometry.