Phase modulation can be used to improve the signal-to-noise ratio and spurfree dynamic range (SFDR) of microwave photonic links because phase modulation is not limited in input modulation swing and is inherently linear using certain electro-optic devices. Traditional interferometer-based phase demodulators have a sinusoidal response therefore a novel approach is required for achieving linear coherent detection at the receive end of a photonic link employing phase modulation. In this work, a balanced receiver with feedback to a reference tracking phase modulator was developed. With sufficient feedback loop gain, the received signal phase is closely tracked and the phase detection falls within the linear regime of the interferometer response. For stable operation at high frequency the delay of the feedback loop must be kept short, therefore a monolithic approach is required to realize a compact receiver architecture.

The monolithic photonic integrated circuit (PIC) developed here consists of a high power balanced uni-traveling-carrier photodiode (UTC-PD), a compact 2x2 multimode interference (MMI) coupler, and multi-quantum well reference phase modulators. This PIC is hybrid integrated with an electronic IC that provides transconductance amplification of the feedback signal for increased loop gain. Novel concepts such as charge compensation, partially depleted absorption, and absorption profile modification were incorporated into the design of the waveguide UTCPDs resulting in record output saturation current and linearity. Both general interference surface ridge (SR) MMI couplers and restricted interference deep ridge (DR) MMI couplers were explored, the latter for reducing the loop delay. Current injection tuning was incorporated into the MMI couplers for fine tuning the output power splitting ratio. The quantum well design of the reference phase modulators was optimized for realizing low V_π, low insertion loss, low absorption modulation, and improved linearity. Second generation integrated receivers incorporated quantum well intermixing (QWI) to eliminate the tradeoff between phase modulation efficiency and passive loss.

Using a first generation SR coherent receiver in a link experiment, the demonstrated SFDR for signal frequencies of 300 MHz, 500 MHz, and 1 GHz was 125 dB˙Hz^2/3, 121 dB˙Hz^2/3, and 113 dB˙Hz^2/3 respectively. Using a second generation DR coherent receiver with QWI for low passive loss, and more efficient phase modulators, the projected SFDR was improved by 6 dB.