Multifold clock recovery and demultiplexing based on a polarization-dependent phase modulator incorporated frequency-doubling optoelectronic oscillator

A novel multifold clock recovery structure with demultiplexing function based on a frequency-doubling optoelectronic oscillator (FD-OEO) incorporating a common commercial phase modulator (PM) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. A special phase modulation is obtained thanks to polarization-sensitive feature of LiNbO₃ crystal of the PM. The special phase modulated signal is then split two parts connected by two pairs of polarization controllers (PCs) and polarizers to perform polarization interference and phase modulation to intensity modulation conversion. By controlling the PCs, the joint use of PC and polarizer in the loop is to guarantee an OEO with fundamental frequency self-oscillation, while the other outside of the OEO obtains frequency-doubled microwave signal at the output of the photodetector. Additionally, an optical filter can be inserted into the outside branch to only allow ±2nd-order sidebands pass through and realize frequency quadrupling after beating at the PD. Therefore, a prescaled clock at 10 GHz, a line-rate clock at 20 GHz and a 40 GHz frequency-doubled clock can be extracted from the injection-locked OEO respectively when a 2 × 10 Gb / s optical time division multiplexing (OTDM) data signal is injected. A twofold time division demultiplexing is demonstrated. Theoretical analysis is developed, which is validated by an experiment.