Integrated Microwave Photonics for Wideband Signal Processing

Abstract

Abstract:We describe recent progress in integrated microwave photonics in wideband signal processing applications with a focus on the key signal processing building blocks, the realization of monolithic integration, and cascaded photonic signal processing for analog radio frequency (RF) photonic links. New developments in integration-based microwave photonic techniques, that have high potentialities to be used in a variety of sensing applications for enhanced resolution and speed are also presented.

Photonics-Based Microwave Image-Reject Mixer

“…To realize compact photonics-based microwave IRMs with high stability, integrated microwave photonic technology can be applied [47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60]. Integrated components including modulators, 90 • optical hybrids, PDs [47][48][49], optical oscillators and circulators [50], integrated sub-systems (such as lasers) [51], microwave photonic spectrum shapers [52], phase shifters [53], delay lines [54], filters [55] and processors [56][57][58][59] have been widely investigated, and great progress has been made. In addition, incorporation of new materials, such as graphene [60], to the field of integrated microwave photonics, brings new advantages, such as fast tuning speed, high nonlinearity and so on.…”

Recent Trends and Advances of Silicon-Based Integrated Microwave Photonics

“…Following these pioneering results, extensive research has been directed toward MWP [3,4,6,8,9,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19], especially on solutions for the generation, transmission, and processing of microwave signals, because of its enormous potential for new technological applications in telecommunications [7]. In particular, at the present time, MWP provides new ways and possibilities to approach the emerging information technology scenarios, such as 5G mobile communications and Internet of Things (IoT), with capabilities beyond those of conventional electronic systems, in terms of enhanced flexibility, scalability, and capacity [1,[6][7][8]20,21]. The massive bandwidth, electromagnetic interference immunity, and flexible photonic platform are intrinsic remarkable advantages of MWP solutions to efficiently generate, transmit over low-loss optical fibers, and process microwave signals, overcoming inherent electronic limitations [2][3][4]8,20,22].…”

“…In particular, at the present time, MWP provides new ways and possibilities to approach the emerging information technology scenarios, such as 5G mobile communications and Internet of Things (IoT), with capabilities beyond those of conventional electronic systems, in terms of enhanced flexibility, scalability, and capacity [1,[6][7][8]20,21]. The massive bandwidth, electromagnetic interference immunity, and flexible photonic platform are intrinsic remarkable advantages of MWP solutions to efficiently generate, transmit over low-loss optical fibers, and process microwave signals, overcoming inherent electronic limitations [2][3][4]8,20,22]. Figure 1 shows the schematic of a generic MWP system consisting of three main blocks: (1) a transmitter, (2) a MWP processor, and (3) a receiver.…”

“…Photonics 2018, 4, x FOR PEER REVIEW 2 of 42 immunity, and flexible photonic platform are intrinsic remarkable advantages of MWP solutions to efficiently generate, transmit over low-loss optical fibers, and process microwave signals, overcoming inherent electronic limitations [2][3][4]8,20,22]. Figure 1 shows the schematic of a generic MWP system consisting of three main blocks: (1) a transmitter, (2) a MWP processor, and (3) a receiver.…”

“…Therefore, since 2005, there has been a strong drive for miniaturizing MWP systems onto a single chip to handle analog signals with low power, high efficiency, and high reliability metrics, which can be additionally reconfigured via software-defined networking (SDN) techniques [3,7,[36][37][38][39]. As such, integrated photonics technologies have been increasingly adopted by the MWP community to implement MWP functionalities [7,20,[40][41][42][43]. This has led to a second generation of MWP platforms termed 'Integrated Microwave Photonics' (IMWP).…”