Photonic rf down-converter based on optomechanical oscillation

Abstract

An all optical radio frequency converter. The invention relates to a microtoroid optomechanical oscillator that can provide a local oscillation frequency and a mixing functionality. The microtoroid optomechanical oscillator can be fabricated from a silica-on-silicon wafer. When an input optical signal having an optical carrier frequency carrying a modulated RF signal representing information is applied to the microtoroid optomechanical oscillator, a signal including the baseband information modulated on the optical carrier is provided as output. The output signal can be detected with a photodetector. Information carried by the optical signal can be recorded and/or displayed to a user. Injection locking of the microtoroid optomechanical oscillator can be accomplished by providing a signal of suitable frequency. The frequency and the phase of operation of the microtoroid optomechanical oscillator can be locked to the respective frequency and phase of the injected locking signal.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.