An optical transmitter includes: a mapper that generates an electric field information signal from transmission data; a phase rotation circuit that adds a phase rotation to the electric field information signal; a driver that generates a driving signal from the electric field information signal to which the phase rotation is added; a modulator that generates a modulated optical signal according to the driving signal; and a controller that controls a bias of the modulator according to a change in a carrier frequency of the modulated optical signal corresponding to the phase rotation that is added to the electric field information signal by the phase rotation circuit.

Disclosed are bias control methods for Mach-Zehnder modulators for the generation of optical QAM signals while ensuring correct I/Q polarity of the generated optical QAM signal. One exemplary method involves temporarily offsetting I and Q biases from ideal transmission null bias points while another illustrative method temporarily makes I and Q data streams identical.

An optical transmitter has an optical modulator having Mach-Zehnder interferometers, modulator drivers configured to drive the optical modulator by a drive signal, a low frequency generator configured to generated a low frequency signal that changes a ratio of a driving amplitude with respect to a half-wave voltage of the optical modulator, a photodetector configured to detect a portion of output light of the optical modulator, a detector configured to detect a low frequency component contained in a detected signal from the photodetector using the low frequency signal, and a bias voltage controller configured to control a bias voltage for the optical modulator such that the detected low frequency component becomes the maximum and in-phase with the superimposed low frequency signal.

Methods and apparatus for controlling a bias voltage (20) supplied to an optical modulator that comprises a biasable component configurable to be biased by application of the bias voltage (20), the method comprising: providing a target for the modulator output power; applying, to the biasable component, a bias voltage (20) that biases the biasable component so that the output power is within a pre-defined range of the target; monitoring the output power and, if the output power of the modulator is determined to be outside the pre-defined range, varying the value of the bias voltage (20) to bring the output power back within the pre-defined range; and monitoring the optical input to the modulator and, if it has been disabled, maintaining the bias voltage (20) at its current level for a pre-determined length of time that is dependent upon how long the modulator has been operating at quadrature.

A method and an apparatus for digitally and automatically controlling a bias voltage of an electro-optic optical modulator are disclosed. The method includes: outputting a scanning bias voltage; acquiring a first optical signal; converting the first optical signal into a first electrical signal; outputting a first direct current signal; calculating an operating bias voltage at each operating point and a half-wave voltage; calculating an error feedback coefficient and a dither amplitude; outputting an operating bias voltage and a dither signal with the dither amplitude; acquiring a second optical signal; converting the second optical signal into a second electrical signal; outputting a harmonic component; calculating a harmonic amplitude and a shift phase; calculating a new bias voltage; and using the new bias voltage as the operating bias voltage.

A Dual Parallel (DP)-Inphase/Quadrature (I/Q) Mach-Zehnder Modulator (MZM) bias controller configured to generate a pair of orthogonal dither signals; multiply the pair of dither signals to create a second order orthogonal dither signal; and lock an Inphase (I) I MZM of a DP-I/Q MZM to a value of a corresponding I component of a transmission signal by applying the pair of orthogonal dither signal to a Quadrature (Q) MZM and a Phase (P) MZM of the DP-I/Q MZM; applying an I bias signal to the I MZM of the DP-I/Q MZM; detecting an output of the DP-I/Q MZM; and determining an I error signal in the output of the I MZM of the DP-I/Q MZM based on the product of second order dither signal and the output of the DP-I/Q MZM.

An optical network unit (ONU) comprising a media access controller (MAC) configured to support biasing a laser transmitter to compensate for temperature related wavelength drift receiving a transmission timing instruction from an optical network control node, obtaining transmission power information for the laser transmitter, estimating a burst mode time period for the laser transmitter according to the transmission timing instruction, and calculating a laser phase fine tuning compensation value for the laser transmitter according to the burst mode time period and the transmission power information, and forwarding the laser phase fine tuning compensation value toward a bias controller to support biasing a phase of the laser transmitter.

A technique for tuning a silicon photonics (SiP) based nested (parent/child) Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM). The technique includes a sequence of applying dither tones on individual arms of the child MZMs, observing changes in the output of the MZM, and adjusting the MZM until reaching the null points for the child MZMs and the quad point for the parent MZM.

The present invention relates to telecommunication techniques and integrated circuit (IC) devices. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention provide an off-quadrature modulation system. Once an off-quadrature modulation position is determined, a ratio between DC power transfer amplitude and dither tone amplitude for a modulator is as a control loop target to stabilize off-quadrature modulation. DC power transfer amplitude is obtained by measuring and sampling the output of an optical modulator. Dither tone amplitude is obtained by measuring and sampling the modulator output and performing calculation using the optical modulator output values and corresponding dither tone values. There are other embodiments as well.

An optical transmission device includes an optical modulator and a processor. The optical modulator optically modulates an optical signal with a driving signal to output a modulated optical signal. The processor performs ABC on a bias of the optical modulator, using the modulated optical signal, so as to cause the bias to converge to an optimum point. The processor starts the ABC using a modulated optical signal optically modulated with a QPSK signal at start-up timing, acquires an optimum value that is a bias value when the bias converges to the optimum point, and stops the ABC. After the ABC is stopped, the processor sets the acquired optimum value as an initial value, and restarts the ABC using a modulated optical signal optically modulated with an N-QPSK signal.