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We report on the study of widely tunable, resonant single-sideband electro-optical modulators based on whispering gallery mode (WGM) resonators, made out of electro-optically active materials. The modulation process involves interaction of different WGM families with an externally applied microwave field. The tunability results from the unequal response of the mode families to either a temperature change or to an applied voltage. We show that the modulator can be used as an efficient microwave photonic receiver that operates either in direct or coherent regime. Due to its resonant nature, the high-Q electro-optical modulator also can be used as a resolution booster for a low-resolution RF spectrum analyzer. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We study improvements of the Self-Injection Locked (SIL) distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor laser phase noise as well as integral linewidth on the amount of the SIL feedback and show that SIL reduces the laser noise nearly equally in a broad frequency range, spanning from 1 Hz to 10 MHz. In our experiment SIL operation is supported by a tunable resonant reflector consisting of a high quality factor (high-Q) monolithic whispering gallery mode resonator (WGMR) supplied with a controllable attenuator. Using the experimental setup we validated theoretical formula describing the SIL spectral purity and identified practical parameters of the system allowing reaching the phase noise limit resulting from the fundamental thermodynamic noise of the resonator. We show that the linewidth improvement due to SIL effect is drastically impacted by the frequency spectral dependence of the phase noise of the laser and that it drops significantly in a flickering laser. We also confirmed that the thermorefractive coefficient as well as mode volume of the WGMR imposes the major limitations on the SIL performance. Low intracavity absorption is needed to suppress the attenuation-related thermal effects in the cavity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]