Photonic scheme for broadband frequency response measurement of PDs.

We report a scheme to measure the broadband frequency response of photodetectors (PDs) with the capacity of self-calibration. The optical carrier at f 0 is modulated through one modulator, and this modulator is driven by a microwave signal with a fixed frequency f 1 to produce the carrier-suppressed double sideband optical signals f 0-f 1 and f 0+f 1. The frequency interval of the optical signals is 2f 1. Subsequently, the two optical signals are sent to another modulator driven by a swept microwave signal f m. Two pairs of carrier-suppressed double sideband signals with a high signal-to-noise ratio are generated. The frequencies of these signals are f 0-f 1-f m,f 0-f 1+f m, f 0+f 1-f m, and f 0+f 1+f m. After the PD under test, the frequency response can be extracted from the amplitude of the microwave signals at 2f 1, 2f 1-2f m, and 2f 1+2f m. Two PDs in our laboratory are experimentally characterized from 0.1 to 40 GHz with a resolution of 100 MHz. Compared with the traditional vector network analyzer swept method, the proposed method extends the measurement range from f m(max) to 2f 1+2f m(max) and has the capacity of self-calibration to eliminate the influence caused by the modulator frequency response on the measurement results.