60 GHz Wireless Link Implementing an Electronic Mixer Driven by a Photonically Integrated Uni-Traveling Carrier Photodiode at the Receiver

We report the first 60 GHz wireless link implementing a uni-traveling carrier photodiode (UTC-PD) at the transmitter and a photonic integrated chip incorporating a UTC-PD at the receiver. In this demonstration, a 64.5 GHz signal carrying 1 Gbps on-off keying (OOK) data was generated by heterodyning two optical tones into the transmitter UTC-PD. The signal was transmitted using a 24 dBi gain parabolic antenna over a wireless distance of three metres before reaching an identical receiver antenna. At the receiver, an electronic mixer was used to down-convert the received signal into an intermediate frequency of 12.5 GHz. The local oscillator to the electronic mixer was provided by heterodyne mixing of two optical tones generated using a UTC-PD that is monolithically integrated with semiconductor lasers. The down-converted signal was acquired by a real-time oscilloscope for offline processing, which showed zero error bits in a 105 bit-long transmission.