Frequency chirp correction method for photonic time-stretch system

Abstract

A frequency chirp correction method for the photonic time-stretch system comprises acquiring the stretching signal, i.e. acquiring the time-domain data after the time-domain stretching. First, the time-domain data of the stretching signal is Fourier transformed to obtain the spectral distribution. The spectral distribution is then convoluted with the first frequency-domain correction factor, and then multiplied with the second frequency-domain correction factor to obtain the modified frequency spectrum. Finally, the modified frequency spectrum is performed by the inverse Fourier transform to obtain the time-domain signal after the frequency chirp correction.

Claims

1. A frequency chirp correction method for a photonic time-stretch system, comprising: (1) acquiring a photocurrent signal by an analog to digital converter outputted by a fiber; (2) transforming the photocurrent signal from a time-domain to a frequency-domain representation through Fourier transform, to obtain a frequency spectrum signal; (3) applying two frequency-domain correction factors H.sub.1 (ω) and H.sub.2 (ω) to modify the frequency spectrum signal; (4) performing the inverse Fourier transform on the modified frequency spectrum signal to obtain a photocurrent signal in time-domain representation after the frequency chirp corrections; wherein an expression of the frequency-domain correction factor H.sub.1 (ω) is as follows: $H_1\left(\omega \right)=\exp \left(-\frac{{\omega }^2}{2{\omega }_d^2}\right).Math.\left[{\tau }_1\left(\omega \right)L_1+{\tau }_2\left(\omega \right)L_2\right]$ wherein, ω represents an angular frequency, ω.sub.d represents a frequency width filtered by an optical filter in the system, L.sub.1 is a length of a first optical fiber in the system, τ.sub.1 (w) is a group delay per unit length corresponding to the first optical fiber under the angular frequency ω, L.sub.2 is a length of a second optical fiber in the system, and τ.sub.2 (ω) is a group delay per unit length corresponding to the second optical fiber under the angular frequency ω.

2. The frequency chirp correction method according to claim 1, wherein the expression of the photocurrent signal in step (1) is as follows: $I\left(t\right)=\frac{A}{2}\left\{\exp \left[j\frac{{\omega }_{\mathrm{RF}}t}{M\left(t\right)}\right]+\exp \left[-j\frac{{\omega }_{\mathrm{RF}}t}{M\left(t\right)}\right]\right\}$ wherein, A and ω.sub.RF represent an amplitude and angular frequency of a microwave signal inputted by the system, respectively; j represents an imaginary unit; l(t) represents a photocurrent signal, t represents time, and M (t) represents a time-domain stretch multiple of the system related to time.

3. The frequency chirp correction method according to claim 1, wherein the process of modifying the frequency signal in the step (3) is: performing convolution on the frequency spectrum signal with the frequency-domain correction factor H.sub.1 (ω), and then multiplying a convolution result with the frequency-domain correction factor H.sub.2 (ω) to obtain the modified frequency spectrum signal.

4. The frequency chirp correction method according to claim 1, wherein the expression of the corrected photocurrent signal in step (4) is as follows: $I^{\prime }\left(t\right)=A\cos \left(\frac{{\omega }_{\mathrm{RF}}t}{M}\right)$ wherein A and ω.sub.RF represent an amplitude and angular frequency of a microwave signal inputted by the system, respectively; t represents time; M represents a time-domain stretch multiple when the system only considers linear dispersion, and l.sup.l (t) represents a photocurrent signal after frequency chirp correction.

5. The frequency chirp correction method according to claim 1, wherein an expression of the frequency-domain correction factor H.sub.2 (ω) is as follows: $H_2\left(\omega \right)=\left(M-1\right).Math.{\tau }_1\left(\omega \right)L_1-{\tau }_2\left(\omega \right)L_2$ wherein ω is the angular frequency, M is the time-domain stretch multiple when the system only considers linear dispersion, L.sub.1 is the length of the first optical fiber in the system, τ.sub.1 (ω) is the group delay per unit length corresponding to the first optical fiber under the angular frequency ω, L.sub.2 is the length of the second optical fiber in the system, and τ.sub.2 (ω) is the group delay per unit length corresponding to the second optical fiber under the angular frequency ω.

6. The frequency chirp correction method according to claim 4, wherein an expression of the time-domain stretch multiple M is as follows: $M=\frac{{\beta }_1{L}_1+{\beta }_2{L}_2}{{\beta }_1{L}_1}$ wherein β.sub.1 represents a second-order dispersion coefficient of the first optical fiber in the system, β.sub.2 represents a second-order dispersion coefficient of the second optical fiber in the system, L.sub.1 is the length of the first optical fiber in the system, and L.sub.2 is the length of the second optical fiber in the system.

7. The frequency chirp correction method according to claim 5, wherein the expression of the time-domain stretch multiple M is as follows: $M=\frac{{\beta }_1{L}_1+{\beta }_2{L}_2}{{\beta }_1{L}_1}$ wherein β.sub.1 represents a second-order dispersion coefficient of the first optical fiber in the system, β.sub.2 represents a second-order dispersion coefficient of the second optical fiber in the system, L.sub.1 is the length of the first optical fiber in the system, and L.sub.2 is the length of the second optical fiber in the system.

8. A frequency chirp correction method for a photonic time-stretch system, comprising: (1) acquiring a photocurrent signal by an analog to digital converter outputted by a fiber; (2) transforming the photocurrent signal from a time-domain to a frequency-domain representation through Fourier transform, to obtain a frequency spectrum signal; (3) applying two frequency-domain correction factors H.sub.1 (ω) and H.sup.2 (ω) to modify the frequency spectrum signal; (4) performing the inverse Fourier transform on the modified frequency spectrum signal to obtain a photocurrent signal in time-domain representation after the frequency chirp correction; wherein an expression of the frequency-domain correction factor H.sub.2 (ω) is as follows: $H_2\left(\omega \right)=\left(M-1\right).Math.{\tau }_1\left(\omega \right)L_1-{\tau }_2\left(\omega \right)L_2$ wherein ω is an angular frequency, M is a time-domain stretch multiple when the system only considers linear dispersion, L.sub.1 is a length of the first optical fiber in the system, τ.sub.1 (ω) is a group delay per unit length corresponding to the first optical fiber under the angular frequency ω, L.sub.2 is a length of the second optical fiber in the system, and τ.sub.2 (ω) is a group delay per unit length corresponding to the second optical fiber under the angular frequency ω.

9. The frequency chirp correction method according to claim 8, wherein the expression of the photocurrent signal in step (1) is as follows: $I\left(t\right)=\frac{A}{2}\left\{\exp \left[j\frac{{\omega }_{RF}t}{M\left(t\right)}\right]+\exp \left[-j\frac{{\omega }_{RF}t}{M\left(t\right)}\right]\right\}$ wherein, A and ω.sub.RF represent an amplitude and angular frequency of a microwave signal inputted by the system, respectively; j represents an imaginary unit; I(t) represents a photocurrent signal, t represents time, and M(t) represents a time-domain stretch multiple of the system related to time.

10. The frequency chirp correction method according to claim 8, wherein the process of modifying the frequency signal in the step (3) is: performing convolution on the frequency spectrum signal with the frequency-domain correction factor H.sub.1 (ω), and then multiplying a convolution result with the frequency-domain correction factor H.sub.2 (ω) to obtain a modified frequency spectrum signal.

11. The frequency chirp correction method according to claim 8, wherein the expression of the corrected photocurrent signal in step (4) is as follows: $I^{\prime }\left(t\right)=A\cos \left(\frac{{\omega }_{RF}t}{M}\right)$ wherein A and ω.sub.RF represent an amplitude and angular frequency of a microwave signal inputted by the system, respectively; t represents time; M represents the time-domain stretch multiple when the system only considers linear dispersion, and l.sup.1 (t) represents a photocurrent signal after frequency chirp correction.

12. The frequency chirp correction method according to claim 8, wherein an expression of the frequency-domain correction factor H.sub.1(ω) is as follows: $H_1\left(\omega \right)=\exp \left(-\frac{{\omega }^2}{2{\omega }_d^2}\right).Math.\left[{\tau }_1\left(\omega \right)L_1+{\tau }_2\left(\omega \right)L_2\right]$ wherein, ω represents the angular frequency, ω.sub.d represents a frequency width filtered by an optical filter in the system, L.sub.1 is the length of a first optical fiber in the system, τ.sub.1 (ω) is the group delay per unit length corresponding to the first optical fiber under the angular frequency ω, L.sub.2 is the length of a second optical fiber in the system, and τ.sub.2 (ω) is the group delay per unit length corresponding to the second optical fiber under the angular frequency ω.

13. The frequency chirp correction method according to claim 11, wherein an expression of the time-domain stretch multiple M is as follows: $M=\frac{{\beta }_1{L}_1+{\beta }_2{L}_2}{{\beta }_1{L}_1}$ wherein β.sub.1 represents a second-order dispersion coefficient of the first optical fiber in the system, β.sub.2 represents a second-order dispersion coefficient of the second optical fiber in the system, L.sub.1 is the length of the first optical fiber in the system, and L.sub.2 is the length of the second optical fiber in the system.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

(1) FIG. 1 is a structural block diagram of a photonic time-stretch system and a correction system of the present disclosure.

(2) FIG. 2 is a time-domain waveform of the output signal of the photonic time-stretch system.

(3) FIG. 3 is a graph showing the frequency of the output signal of the photonic time-stretch system changing with time.

(4) FIG. 4 is a time-domain waveform of the output signal after the frequency chirp correction by the present disclosure.

(5) FIG. 5 is a graph showing the frequency of the output signal changing with time after the frequency chirp correction by the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

(6) In order to describe the present disclosure more specifically, the technical solution of the present disclosure will be described in detail below in combination with the drawings and the specific embodiments.

(7) The present disclosure is to provide a frequency chirp correction method for a photonic time-stretch system, including the following steps:

(8) (1) The time-domain electrical signal output by the photonic time-stretch system is acquired, wherein the specific process of the time-domain electrical signal output by the photonic time-stretch system is as follows:

(9) 1.1. As shown in FIG. 1, the mode locked laser 1 generates ultrashort pulse laser, filtering out the appropriate wave band by the optical filter 2, and then the appropriate wave band passes through the first optical fiber 3. Due to the dispersion effect, the chirped optical pulse is obtained. The pulse broadening width is:
Δt.sub.1(ω)=L.sub.1.Math.τ.sub.1(ω)

(10) wherein, ω represents the angular frequency, L.sub.1 is the length of the first optical fiber L.sub.1, τ.sub.1(ω) is the group delay per unit length corresponding to the first optical fiber under the angular frequency ω, and Δt.sub.1(w) is the pulse broadening width after passing through the first optical fiber under the angular frequency ω.

(11) 1.2. The chirped optical pulse passes through the M-Z electro-optical modulator 5, and modulates the microwave signal 4 on the envelope of the chirped optical pulse in the way of single arm double-sideband modulation to output the optical carried microwave signal.

(12) 1.3. The optical carried microwave signal passes through the second optical fiber 6, due to the dispersion effect, it is further stretched in the time-domain. And the pulse broadening width is:
Δt.sub.t(ω)=L.sub.1.Math.τ.sub.1(ω)+L.sub.2.Math.τ.sub.2(ω)

(13) wherein, ω is the angular frequency, L.sub.1 is the length of the first optical fiber L.sub.1, τ.sub.1(ω) is the group delay per unit length corresponding to the first optical fiber under the angular frequency ω, L.sub.2 is the length of the second optical fiber L.sub.2, τ.sub.2 (ω) is the group delay per unit length corresponding to the second optical fiber under the angular frequency ω, Δt.sub.2 (ω) is the pulse broadening width after passing through two optical fibers under the angular frequency ω.

(14) The stretch multiple of the system is:

(15) $M\left(t\right)=\frac{\Delta t_2\left(\omega \right){|}_{\omega =\frac{t}{\Phi }}}{\Delta t_1\left(\omega \right){|}_{\omega =\frac{t}{\Phi }}}$

(16) Wherein, t represents the time, Δt.sub.1(ω) represents the pulse broadening width after passing through the first optical fiber at the angular frequency ω, Δt.sub.t (ω) represents the pulse broadening width after passing through the two optical fibers at the angular frequency ω, Φ=β.sub.1L.sub.1+β.sub.2L.sub.2 is the total second-order dispersion of the two optical fibers, β.sub.1 is the second-order dispersion coefficient of the first optical fiber, β.sub.2 is the second-order dispersion coefficient of the second optical fiber, ω is the angular frequency, and L.sub.1 is the second-order dispersion coefficient of the first optical fiber L.sub.1, L.sub.2 is the length of the second optical fiber L.sub.2, and M(t) is the time-domain stretch multiple related to time.

(17) If only considering the linear dispersion, the stretch multiple of the system is constant:

(18) $M=\frac{{\beta }_1{L}_1+{\beta }_2{L}_2}{{\beta }_1{L}_1}$

(19) wherein: β.sub.1 is the second-order dispersion coefficient of the first optical fiber, β.sub.2 is the second-order dispersion coefficient of the second optical fiber, L.sub.1 is the length of the first optical fiber L.sub.1, and L.sub.2 is the length of the second optical fiber L.sub.2. M is a constant time-domain stretch multiple only considering the linear dispersion.

(20) 1.4. The stretched optical carried microwave signal is then photoelectric converted and quantification sampled by the photodetector 7 and the analog-to-digital converter 8 to obtain the digital stretching signal. When the system inputs a single tone signal, under the condition of the small signal approximation (m<<1), the output current time-domain signal is:

(21) $\begin{array}{c}I\left(t\right)=i_{env}\left(t\right)\left[-4J_1\left(m\right)\cos {\phi }_{disp}-2J_1\left(2m\sin {\phi }_{disp}\right)\right]\cos \left[\frac{{\omega }_{\mathrm{RF}}t}{M\left(t\right)}\right]\\ \approx i_{env}\left(t\right)\left[-2\sqrt{2}\mathrm{mcos}\left({\phi }_{disp}-\frac{\pi }{4}\right)\right]\cos \left[\frac{{\omega }_{\mathrm{RF}}t}{M\left(t\right)}\right]\\ =\frac{A}{2}\left\{\exp \left[j\frac{{\omega }_{\mathrm{RF}}t}{M\left(t\right)}\right]+\exp \left[-j\frac{{\omega }_{\mathrm{RF}}t}{M\left(t\right)}\right]\right\}\end{array}$

(22) Wherein, i.sub.env (t) represents the pulse envelope of the stretched microwave signal, J.sub.n(x) represents the first kind of Bessel function of order n, φ.sub.disp represents the phase complex constant introduced by dispersion, ω.sub.RF represents the angular frequency of the input microwave signal, t represents the time, M(t) represents the time-domain stretch multiple related to time, A represents the amplitude of the microwave signal, j represents the imaginary unit, and I(t) represents the photocurrent outputted by the detector.

(23) It can be seen that the photonic time-stretch system changes the frequency of microwave signal to 1/M(t), and the problem of frequency chirp occurs in the microwave signal.

(24) (2) The time-domain signal is transformed into the frequency-domain signal through the Fourier transform (FFT) 9, which is expressed as:

(25) $I\left(\omega \right)=\pi A\left\{\delta \left[\omega -\frac{{\omega }_{RF}}{M\left(t\right){|}_{t=\omega \Phi }}\right]+\delta \left[\omega +\frac{{\omega }_{RF}}{M\left(t\right){|}_{t=\omega \Phi }}\right]\right\}$

(26) Wherein, ω represents angular frequency; A and ω.sub.RF represent amplitude and angular frequency of microwave signal, respectively; δ[ ] is Dirac delta function, t represents time, M(t) is the time-domain stretch multiple related to time; Φ=β.sub.1L.sub.1+β.sub.2L.sub.2 is the total second-order dispersion of two optical fibers, β.sub.1 is the second-order dispersion coefficient of the first optical fiber, β.sub.2 is the second-order dispersion coefficient of the second optical fiber, co is the angular frequency; L.sub.1 is the length of the first optical fiber L.sub.1, L.sub.2 is the length of the second optical fiber L.sub.2, and I(w) is the frequency-domain expression of the digitized signal.

(27) (3) The spectrum is convoluted with the first frequency-domain correction factor

(28) $H_1\left(\omega \right)=\exp \left(-\frac{{\omega }^2}{2{\omega }_d^2}\right).Math.\left[{\tau }_1\left(\omega \right)L+{\tau }_2\left(\omega \right)L_2\right],$
and then multiplied with the second frequency-domain correction factor H.sub.2(ω)=(M−1).Math.τ.sub.1(ω)L.sub.1−τ.sub.2(ω)L.sub.2. The corrected spectrum is obtained as follows:

(29) 0$\begin{array}{c}I\left(\omega \right)=\int I\left(\tau \right)H_1\left(\omega -\tau \right)d\tau \times H_2\left(\omega \right)\\ =\underset{n}{.Math.}\pi A_n\left\{\delta \left[\omega -\frac{{\omega }_{RFn}}{M}\right]+\delta \left[\omega +\frac{{\omega }_{RFn}}{M}\right]\right\}\end{array}$

(30) Wherein, ω represents the angular frequency, H.sub.1(ω) represents the first frequency-domain correction factor; H.sub.2 (ω) represents the second frequency-domain correction factor; A and ω.sub.RF represent the amplitude and angular frequency of microwave signal, respectively; δ[ ] represents the Dirac delta function; M represents a constant time-domain stretch multiple only considering the linear dispersion; and I′(ω) is the modified spectrum formula.

(31) (4) The inverse Fourier transform (IFFT)11 is performed on the modified frequency spectrum to obtain a time-domain signal after the frequency chirp correction.

(32) $\begin{array}{c}{I}^{\prime }\left(t\right)=\frac{A}{2}\left\{\exp \left(j\frac{{\omega }_{RF}t}{M\left(t\right)}\right)+\exp \left(-j\frac{{\omega }_{RF}t}{M\left(t\right)}\right)\right\}\\ =A\cos \left(\frac{{\omega }_{RF}t}{M}\right)\end{array}$

(33) wherein A and ω.sub.RF represent the amplitude and angular frequency of the microwave signal, respectively; t represents the time; M represents the time-domain stretch multiple when the system only considers linear dispersion, J is the imaginary unit, and I′(t) represents the time-domain signal without frequency chirp.

(34) It can be seen that the output signal that modified by frequency chirp correction no longer changes in frequency with time, and a stable M times frequency reduction is achieved.

(35) In the following, the effectiveness of the technical solution of the present disclosure will be further verified through simulation results specifically: the center frequency of ultrashort pulse laser is 193.41 THz, and the frequency band from 192.17 THz to 194.67 THz is filtered out by optical filter. The pulse laser is broadened through the first optical fiber with a length of 3 km, wherein the second-order dispersion coefficient of the first optical fiber is 16.44 ps/nm/km, and the group delay per unit length of the first optical fiber under the angular frequency co is

(36) ${\tau }_1\left(\omega \right)=\left(\omega +4\times 10^{11}\right)\left[\frac{36{\pi }^2}{\omega \times 10^5}-\frac{1496^4{\omega }^3}{9{\pi }^2\times 10^{51}{\left(\omega +2\times 10^{11}\right)}^2}\right].$
The microwave signal passes through the Mach-Zehnder modulator to be modulated on the broadened pulse laser in a way of double-sideband intensity modulation. The modulated pulse laser then passes through the second optical fiber with a length of 9 km to realize optical time stretching, wherein the second-order dispersion coefficient of the second optical fiber is 16.44 ps/nm/km, and the group delay per unit length of the second optical fiber under the angular frequency ω is

(37) ${\tau }_2=\left(\omega +4\times {10}^{11}\right)\left[\frac{198{\pi }^2}{\omega \times 10^6}-\frac{11\times 1312^4{\omega }^3}{18{\pi }^2\times 10^{52}{\left(\omega +2\times 10^{11}\right)}^2}\right].$

(38) Then, the stretched pulse laser is then photoelectric converted and quantification sampled by photodetector and analog-to-digital converter to obtain the digital time-domain electrical signal. And the time-domain electrical signal is Fourier transformed to obtain the frequency-domain representation. Next, the frequency spectrum is convoluted with the first frequency-domain correction factor, and the convolution result is multiplied with the second frequency-domain correction factor to obtain the modified frequency spectrum. Finally, the modified frequency spectrum is performed inverse Fourier transformed to obtain the modified time-domain signal after the frequency chirped correction.

(39) In the simulation example, the input microwave signal is a sine wave signal with a frequency of 20 GHz, and the modulation coefficient is 0.1. FIG. 2 and FIG. 3 are the time-domain waveform of the output signal of the photonic time-stretch system and the curve of the frequency of the output signal of the photonic time-stretch system changing with time, respectively. It can be seen from FIG. 2 that the output signal of the system is not a sine wave signal with stable frequency, and FIG. 3 more intuitively shows that the frequency of the output signal is changing with the time from about 4.4 GHz to about 5.5 GHz. FIG. 4 is a time-domain waveform of the output signal after the frequency chirp correction by the present disclosure, and FIG. 5 is a graph showing the frequency of the output signal changing with time after the frequency chirp correction by the present disclosure. It can be seen from FIG. 4 and FIG. 5 that the frequency of the signal outputted by the system is stable at 5 GHz when inputting 20 GHz sinusoidal signal, and the stretching ratio is fixed at 4 without any change with time. Compared with FIG. 2 and FIG. 3, the method of the present disclosure can effectively correct the problem of the frequency chirp of the output signal in the photonic time-stretch system.

(40) The above described embodiments are for the convenience of those skilled in the art to understand and apply the present disclosure. It is obvious that those skilled in the art can easily make various modifications to the above embodiments, and apply the general principles described herein to other embodiments without creative labor. Therefore, the present disclosure is not limited to the above embodiments. According to the disclosure of the present disclosure, the improvement and modification of the present disclosure should be within the scope of the present disclosure.