Photonic Frequency Conversion of OFDM Microwave Signals in a Wavelength-Scale Optomechanical Cavity

Abstract

Optomechanical (OM) cavities enable coupling of near-infrared light and GHz-frequency acoustic waves in wavelength-scale volumes. When driven in the phonon lasing regime, an OM cavity can perform simultaneously as a nonlinear mixer and a local oscillator—at integer multiples of the mechanical resonance frequency—in the optical domain. In this work, this property is used to demonstrate all-optical frequency down- and up-conversion of MHz-bandwidth orthogonal frequency division multiplexed signals compliant with the IEEE 802.16e WiMAX wireless standard at microwave frequencies. To this end, a silicon OM crystal cavity (OMCC), supporting a breathing-like mechanical resonance at (Formula presented.) GHz and having a foot-print (Formula presented.) 10 (Formula presented.) m (Formula presented.), which yields frequency conversion efficiencies better than −17 dB in both down- and up-conversion processes at mW-scale driving power, is employed. This work paves the way toward the application of OMCCs in low-power all-photonic processing of digitally modulated microwave signals in miniaturized silicon photonics chips.