Millimeter-Wave Photonics for Communications and Phased Arrays

Abstract

This article presents recent developments in millimeter-wave communications architectures featuring broadband photonic signal generation, up-conversion and down-conversion, as well as true-time-delay photonic steering of millimeter-wave arrays. These developments will support future high-capacity millimeter-wave wireless communications by enabling broadband signals to be generated and converted between baseband and millimeter-wave carrier frequencies without electronic heterodyne systems and by permitting the use of true-time-delay beamsteering in millimeter-wave array apertures.

Keywords:

• microwave photonics
• millimeter-wave communications
• optical millimeter-wave generation
• phased arrays
• radio over fiber

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeffrey A. Nanzer

Jeffrey A. Nanzer received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering and the B.S. degree in computer engineering from Michigan State University in 2003 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2005 and 2008, respectively. From 2008 to 2009 he was with the University of Texas Applied Research Laboratories in Austin, Texas as a Post-Doctoral Fellow designing electrically small HF antennas and communications systems. In 2009 he joined The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory where he created and leads the Advanced Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Technology Section. He has published more than 40 refereed journal and conference papers, is the author of Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Remote Sensing for Security Applications (Artech House, 2012), and co-author of the chapter “Photonics-Enabled Millimeter-Wave Wireless Systems” in the book Wireless Transceiver Circuits (Taylor & Francis, 2015). His research interests are in the areas of coherent distributed RF systems, millimeter-wave photonics, microwave and millimeter-wave remote sensing, antennas and arrays, radiometry, and electromagnetics. Dr. Nanzer is a senior member of the IEEE, and is a member if the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S), the IEEE Photonics Society, the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society, and USNC/URSI Commission B. He is the Vice Chair of the IEEE MTT-S Microwave Systems Technical Committee (MTT-16), a member of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Standards Committee, and a member of the IEEE Press Editorial Board. From 2013-2015 he served as Vice-Chair of the IEEE Antenna Standards Committee. He is a member of the Executive Committee for the IEEE International Conference on Ultra Wideband, and a member of the Technical Program Review Committees for the IEEE International Microwave Symposium and the IEEE International Conference on Microwaves for Intelligent Mobility. He was a founding member and the first treasurer of the IEEE AP-S/MTT Central Texas Chapter. He was the recipient of the 2012 JHU/APL Outstanding Professional Book Award.

Adam Wichman

Adam Wichman is a PhD candidate in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at Boston University, where he works on microwave photonics and infrared detectors. He is a 2014 Dean's Fellow with the Boston University College of Engineering and was awarded a 2015 National Defense Science and Engineering Fellowship. He earned his B.S. in electrical engineering, with distinction, from the U.S. Naval Academy.

Jonathan Klamkin

Jonathan Klamkin received the B.S. degree in electrical and computer engineering (ECE) from Cornell University in 2002, and the M.S. degree in ECE and Ph.D. in materials from the University of California Santa Barbara in 2004 and 2008, respectively. From 2008-2011 he was a member of the Technical Staff in the Electro-Optical Materials and Devices Group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. From 2011-2013 he was an assistant professor at the Institute of Communication, Information and Perception Technologies (TeCIP), Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy, where he was the recipient of an Erasmus Mundus scholarship and a Marie Curie fellowship, and served as the director of the Integrated Photonic Technologies Center. In 2013 he joined Boston University (BU) as an assistant professor in ECE and Materials Science and Engineering. He is also affiliated with the BU Photonics Center and leads the Integrated Photonics Group. Prof. Klamkin has served on the Technical Program Committee for the Microwave Photonics Conference, the IEEE Photonics Conference, Photonics in Switching, the Optical Fiber Communication Conference, and Integrated Photonics Research, Silicon and Nanophotonics. He is also an Associate Editor for Photonics Technology Letters. He received best paper awards at the 2006 Conference on Optoelectronic and Microelectronic Materials and Devices and the 2007 Microwave Photonics Conference, and is the recipient of a NASA Early Career Faculty Research Grant. Prof. Klamkin has authored or coauthored 90 papers on photonic integrated circuits, silicon photonics, nanophotonics, microwave photonics, coherent receivers, high power photodiodes, optical modulators, high-power lasers, widely-tunable lasers, and semiconductor optical amplifiers. He is a senior member of the IEEE and member of OSA.

Timothy P. McKenna

Timothy P. McKenna received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, in 2009, and the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, in 2011. He is currently an Associate Professional Staff member at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD. Previously, in 2010 he worked at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, MA. His current research includes high data rate millimeter-wave wireless communications, photonics-assisted analog-to-digital conversion, and next generation optical fiber communications systems. He has authored many conference and journal publications on millimeter-wave and photonics systems and is a member of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society and the IEEE Photonics Society.

Thomas R. Clark

Thomas R. Clark, Jr. received the B.S. degree in physics from Loyola College, Baltimore, MD, in 1991, the M.S. degree in physics from Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, in 1993, and the Ph.D. degree in physics from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1998. He is currently the Supervisor of the Microwave Photonics Section and a member of the Principal Professional Staff at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory developing advanced photonic technologies for microwave and millimeter wave sensor and communications systems. From 1998 to 2000, he was a Research Physicist in the Optical Sciences Division at the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, where his research interests were in the fields of low-noise lasers and microwave photonics. In 2000, he joined the venture-backed Dorsal Networks, Columbia, MD, later acquired by Corvis Corporation, Columbia, MD, where he was a Senior Optical Design Engineer developing hardware and simulation tools for telecommunications applications, including undersea and terrestrial WDM transmission systems, optical amplifiers, optical transceivers, and system control modules. From 2003 to 2010, he was a member of the Senior Professional Staff (2003-2007) and Principal Professional Staff (2007-2010) at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD. In 2010, Dr. Clark was the Director of Photonics at Pharad, LLC in Glen Burnie, MD. His research interests include the study of lasers and nonlinear optics, the development and characterization of low-noise and ultrafast photonic systems and devices, and the application of photonics to problems in optical communications and microwave and millimeter wave systems. Dr. Clark is a member of the IEEE Photonics Society, the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society and the Optical Society of America. He is presently the Technical Program Chair of the 2014 IEEE Photonics Conference, was Co-Technical Program Committee Chair for the 2013 IEEE International Topical Conference on Microwave Photonics, and past Chair of the IEEE Photonics Society technical subcommittee on Microwave Photonics and Optical Processing and Analog Subsystems technical subcommittee for the Optical Fiber Communications Conference.