Photonics-Assisted Millimeter-Wave Communication Systems
Summary
Photonics-assisted millimetre-wave communication systems harness optical techniques to generate, process and distribute electromagnetic signals in the 30 GHz to 300 GHz band. By exploiting optical sources, modulators and photodetectors, these systems overcome the bandwidth and loss limitations of purely electronic approaches. Key enabling methods include photonic heterodyning for wideband frequency synthesis, microwave photonics for low-loss signal routing over fibre, photonic frequency multiplication for high-precision carrier generation and advanced digital signal processing for compensation of nonlinearities and dispersion. Together, these advances yield ultrahigh data-rate links, flexible multi-band operation and co-design of sensing and communication functions. Typical architectures integrate lasers, Mach–Zehnder modulators, radio-over-fibre (RoF) distribution and coherent detection to support 5G/6G mobile fronthaul, fixed wireless access, vehicle-to-everything links and joint radar-communication applications. Current research emphasises photonic integration, machine-learning-based equalisation, frequency-agile vector signal generation and seamless switching between communication and high-resolution sensing. Despite challenges in system complexity, device cost and power consumption, photonics-assisted mm-wave platforms are poised to underpin next-generation networks, autonomous transportation and defence systems through their unparalleled bandwidth, low dispersion and immunity to electromagnetic interference.
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Photonics-Assisted Millimeter-Wave Communication Systems publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in photonics-assisted millimeter-wave communication systems across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Millimetre-wave (mm-wave): Electromagnetic frequencies between 30 GHz and 300 GHz, offering large contiguous bandwidths for high-speed wireless links.
Microwave photonics: Integration of microwave and photonic technologies for generation, processing and distribution of high-frequency signals using optical components.
Photonic heterodyning: Technique in which two lasers with slight frequency separation are combined and photodetected to produce a beat signal at their difference frequency in the mm-wave range.
Radio-over-fibre (RoF): Transmission of radio-frequency signals over optical fibre to enable low-loss, wideband front-haul distribution in wireless networks.
Mach–Zehnder modulator (MZM): Optical device that encodes electrical signals onto an optical carrier via interference between two optical paths.
Digital signal processing (DSP): Electronic algorithms applied to sampled data for compensation of dispersion, nonlinearity and noise in photonic and electronic domains.
Linear frequency modulation (LFM): Waveform in which the instantaneous frequency varies linearly over time, used for high-resolution radar and parameter estimation.
Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM): Multi-carrier modulation technique that allocates data onto numerous orthogonal subcarriers to enhance spectral efficiency and robustness.
References
- Microwave photonics promotes emerging integrated sensing and communication technology. APL Photonics (2025).
- Two-Lane DNN Equalizer Using Balanced Random-Oversampling for W-Band PS-16QAM RoF Delivery over 4.6 km. Sensors (2023).
- Millimeter-wave joint radar and communication system based on photonic frequency-multiplying constant envelope LFM-OFDM.. Optics Express (2022).
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