A 16-tupling frequency system for millimeter-wave generation using cascaded arrangement of parallel Mach-Zehnder modulators is presented in this paper. Parallel non-ideal Mach-Zehnder modulators are used to realize a Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) with an ideal splitting ratio of 0.5. Hence, parallel MZMs work as a modulator with ultra-high extinction ratio. A 5 GHz radio frequency signal is 16-tupled to 80 GHz with optical sideband suppression ratio of 64 dB and radio frequency spurious sideband suppression ratio of 31 dB respectively. The system has radio frequency spurious sideband suppression ratio ≥ 10 dB for modulation range of 2.79 to 2.86. Further, optical sideband suppression and radio frequency spurious sideband suppression ratios are independent of extinction ratio of MZMs.
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