In this paper, a novel photonic scheme for the generation of square and triangular waveforms is proposed and experimentally demonstrated by using a dual-drive Mach–Zehnder modulator (DDMZM) without any optical signal processing. By properly setting the modulation index of the DDMZM, the square and triangular microwave waveforms could be easily achieved in conjunction with a 90° hybrid coupler. Furthermore, the modulation index of the DDMZM could be tuned for a low radio frequency (RF) signal power requirement by tuning the phase difference of the RF signals applied to the two arms of the DDMZM. The proposed scheme for the photonic generation of microwave waveforms is theoretically analyzed and experimentally demonstrated. The periodical triangular and square waveforms with repetition rates of 5 GHz, 8 GHz, and 10 GHz are successfully obtained. The root-mean-square errors between the generated and theoretical triangular and square waveforms with a repetition of 5 GHz are 0.042 and 0.053, respectively.

To obtain low-phase-noise microwave signals with a widely tunable frequency range, an optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) was constructed on the basis of an optically injected semiconductor laser (OISL) for the generation of high-quality microwave signals. Our OEO relied on the effect of wavelength-selective amplification and the period-one (P1) oscillation under optical injection. The signal’s frequency stability, side-mode-suppression ratio (SMSR) and linewidth were optimized by the subharmonic microwave modulation technique in the OEO loop. The experimental results showed that the frequency of the signal obtained by the proposed OEO could be tuned up to 18 GHz. Using the dual-loop OEO structure, the SMSR was increased to 55 dB. Moreover, the phase noise of the obtained microwave signal was lower than −81 dBc/Hz at 1 kHz frequency offset and −119 dBc/Hz at 10 kHz frequency offset. This was achieved by introducing subharmonic microwave modulation in the OEO loop, respectively. Furthermore, via the utilization of a Fabry–Perot laser diode (FP-LD) in the proposed structure, a dual-loop OEO with different dual-frequency configurations (which could be tuned up to 12 and 18 GHz) was obtained.