Quantum microwave photonic mixer with a large spurious-free dynamic range

Abstract: As one of the most fundamental functionalities of microwave photonics, microwave frequency mixing plays an essential role in modern radars and wireless communication systems. However, the commonly utilized intensity modulation in the systems often leads to inadequate spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) for many sought-after applications. Quantum microwave photonics technique offers a promising solution for improving SFDR in terms of higher-order harmonic distortion. In this paper, we demonstrate two types of quantum microwave photonic mixers based on the configuration of the intensity modulators: cascade-type and parallel-type. Leveraging the nonlocal RF signal encoding capability, both types of quantum microwave photonic mixers not only exhibit the advantage of dual-channel output but also present significant improvement in SFDR. Specifically, the parallel-type quantum microwave photonic mixer achieves a remarkable SFDR value of 113.6 dB.Hz1/2, which is 30 dB better than that of the cascade-type quantum microwave photonic mixer. When compared to the classical microwave photonic mixer, this enhancement reaches a notable 53.6 dB at the expense of 8 dB conversion loss. These results highlight the superiority of quantum microwave photonic mixers in the fields of microwave and millimeter-wave systems. Further applying multi-photon frequency entangled sources as optical carriers, the dual-channel microwave frequency conversion capability endowed by the quantum microwave photonic mixer can be extended to enhance the performance of multiple-paths microwave mixing which is essential for radar net systems.