Harmonically mode-locked optoelectronic oscillator (Invited)

An actively mode-locked optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) scheme was proposed to generate high-repetition-rate microwave pulse signals based on high-order harmonic mode locking. In the proposed scheme, the bias port of the electro-optic intensity modulator in the cavity was driven by a sinusoidal signal. The frequency of the sinusoidal signal () was set to betimes of the free spectral range of the OEO cavity to realize fundamental () and harmonic () mode locking, where the repetition rate of the generated microwave pulse signal was equal to. In the proof-of-concept experiment, 10th-, 50th- and 100th-order harmonic mode locking were realized, where the repetition rate of the generated microwave pulse signal was 360 kHz, 1.8 MHz and 3.6 MHz, respectively. The proposed actively mode-locked OEO scheme provides a new way to generate low-phase-noise microwave pulse signals for pulse Doppler radar application.