Patent attributes
An optical transmission device is provided with an external optical modulator including three or more Mach-Zehnder interferometers and outputs a single-sideband optical intensity-modulated signal with suppressed optical carrier component, wherein an optical carrier component and an unnecessary one sideband component contained in the outputted optical signal are suppressed. A light branching section (51) branches an optical signal outputted by an external optical modulator (4) into two signals. A photodetector section (52) converts one of the optical signals to an electric signal. An optical carrier component extracting section (54) extracts an optical carrier component signal that is in the vicinity of a frequency f1 from the electric signal. An optical carrier component suppressing section (56) applies a bias voltage for suppressing the optical carrier component to the external optical modulator (4) based on the signal level of the optical carrier component. A vestigial sideband component extracting section (57) extracts a vestigial sideband component signal in the vicinity of a frequency 2×f1 from the electric signal. A vestigial sideband component suppressing section (59) applies a bias voltage for suppressing an unnecessary one sideband component to the external optical modulator (4) based on the signal level of the vestigial sideband component.
