A Novel Comb Generator for Frequency Phase Transfer

Abstract

This paper presents the design and testing of a millimeter-wave frequency comb generator developed for the Black Hole Explorer (BHEX) mission, a space Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) mission concept. The heart of BHEX is a dual-band receiver, centered at 90 and 270 GHz. This novel comb generator is based on a microwave phase modulator producing phase-coherent comb signals with multi-octave bandwidth, which will be used to track instrumental delays when injected into the receiver system. The comb generator was tested with astronomical receivers, which confirms its expected operation.