Broadband and low loss capability of photonics has led to an ever-increasing interest in its use for the generation, processing, control and distribution of microwave and millimeter-wave signals for applications such as broadband wireless access networks, sensor networks, radar, satellite communitarians, instrumentation and warfare systems. In this tutorial, techniques developed in the last few years in microwave photonics are reviewed with an emphasis on the systems architectures for photonic generation and processing of microwave signals, photonic true-time delay beamforming, radio-over-fiber systems, and photonic analog-to-digital conversion. Challenges in system implementation for practical applications and new areas of research in microwave photonics are also discussed.

Microwave Photonics

Microwave photonics is an area that studies the generation, processing, control and transmission of microwave signals by means of photonics. In this paper, microwave photonics techniques developed in the past few years will be reviewed, with an emphasis on system architectures for microwave applications.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/6305327/6320324/06320333.pdf

Microwave photonics

Microwave photonics (MWP) is an emerging field in which radio frequency (RF) signals are generated, distributed, processed and analyzed using the strength of photonic techniques. It is a technology that enables various functionalities which are not feasible to achieve only in the microwave domain. A particular aspect that recently gains significant interests is the use of photonic integrated circuit (PIC) technology in the MWP field for enhanced functionalities and robustness as well as the reduction of size, weight, cost and power consumption. This article reviews the recent advances in this emerging field which is dubbed as integrated microwave photonics. Key integrated MWP technologies are reviewed and the prospective of the field is discussed.

Integrated microwave photonics

https://engineering.purdue.edu/~fsoptics/articles/Ultrafast_optical_pulse_shaping_tutorial-Weiner.pdf

Ultrafast optical pulse shaping: A tutorial review

Ultra Wideband Signals and Systems in Communication Engineering

Ultrawideband (UWB) that is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for short-range high-throughput wireless communication and sensor networks with advantageous features, such as immunity to multipath fading, extremely short time duration, being carrier free, and having low duty cycle, wide bandwidth, and low power spectral density, has been a topic of interest recently. By wireless transmission, UWB communications systems can only operate in a short distance of a few meters to tens of meters. The convergence of UWB and optical fiber distribution techniques, or UWB over fiber, offers the availability of undisrupted service across different networks and eventually achieves high-data-rate access at any time and from any place. To distribute the UWB signals over the optical fiber, it is also desirable that the UWB signals can be generated in the optical domain without having extra electrical-to-optical conversion. In addition, UWB signals that are generated in the optical domain can be easily tailored to have a spectrum that meets the FCC-specified spectral mask. In this paper, techniques to generate UWB signals in the optical domain will be discussed. These techniques are divided into three categories, with the generation of UWB signals based on the following: 1) phase-modulation-to-intensity-modulation conversion; 2) a photonic microwave delay-line filter; and 3) optical spectral shaping and dispersion-induced frequency-to-time mapping. The areas for future development and the challenge of implementation of these techniques for practical applications will also be discussed.

/pdf/photonic-generation-of-ultrawideband-signals-44jhndjzlw.pdf

Photonic Generation of Ultrawideband Signals

We propose a novel approach to generating ultrawideband impulse radio signals in the optical domain. The proposed system consists of a laser source, an electrooptic phase modulator (EOPM), a fiber Bragg grating (FBG), and a photodetector (PD). The light source is phase modulated by an electrical Gaussian pulse train via the EOPM. The optical phase modulation to intensity modulation conversion is achieved by reflecting the phase modulated light at the slopes of the FBG that serves as a frequency discriminator. Electrical monocycle or doublet pulses are obtained at the output of the PD by locating the wavelength of the optical carrier at the linear or the quadrature slopes of the FBG reflection spectrum. The use of the proposed configuration to implement pulse polarity and pulse shape modulation in the optical domain is discussed. Experimental measurements in both temporal and frequency domains are presented

Ultrawideband Impulse Radio Signal Generation Using a High-Speed Electrooptic Phase Modulator and a Fiber-Bragg-Grating-Based Frequency Discriminator

An approach to generating and distributing ultrawideband (UWB) pulses based on optical spectral shaping and frequency-to-time conversion using all-fiber components is proposed and demonstrated. In the system, the spectrum of an ultrashort pulse from a mode-locked fiber laser is spectrally shaped by an all-fiber spectrum shaper, to produce a monocycle- or a doublet-shaped power spectrum. Thanks to the frequency-to-time conversion in a dispersive fiber, time-domain optical pulses exhibiting the user-defined shape of the optical power spectrum are obtained. Experiments based on the proposed approach are carried out. UWB monocycle or doublet pulses are generated

All-Fiber Ultrawideband Pulse Generation Based on Spectral Shaping and Dispersion-Induced Frequency-to-Time Conversion

A novel method for generating ultrawideband (UWB) monocycle pulses based on cross-gain modulation (XGM) in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Thanks to the XGM in the SOA, a pair of polarity-reversed optical Gaussian pulses is generated at the output of the SOA, to which a Gaussian pulse pump and a continuous-wave probe are applied. The two polarity-reversed optical pulses are then time delayed by two cascaded fiber Bragg gratings to introduce a time delay difference. A UWB monocycle pulse with a full width at half-maximum of 48 ps and a fractional bandwidth of 188% is generated at the output of a high-speed photodetector.

/pdf/optical-ultrawideband-monocycle-pulse-generation-based-on-tmgj57mtiq.pdf

Optical ultrawideband monocycle pulse generation based on cross-gain modulation in a semiconductor optical amplifier

We propose a novel approach to generating and distributing ultrawideband (UWB) pulse signals over optical fiber. The proposed system consists of a single-wavelength laser source, an electrooptic phase modulator (EOPM), a length of single-mode fiber (SMF), and a photodetector (PD). The combination of the EOPM, the SMF link, and the PD forms an all-optical microwave bandpass filter, which is used to generate a UWB signal with a spectrum meeting the regulation of the Federal Communication Commission. Gaussian doublet pulses are obtained at the receiver front-end, which can provide several gigahertz bandwidths for applications in high-bit-rate UWB wireless communications. Experimental results measured in both temporal and frequency domains are presented.

/pdf/an-approach-to-ultrawideband-pulse-generation-and-4646nkc6k9.pdf

Fei Zeng

Papers

Photonic Generation of Ultrawideband Signals

Ultrawideband Impulse Radio Signal Generation Using a High-Speed Electrooptic Phase Modulator and a Fiber-Bragg-Grating-Based Frequency Discriminator

All-Fiber Ultrawideband Pulse Generation Based on Spectral Shaping and Dispersion-Induced Frequency-to-Time Conversion

Optical ultrawideband monocycle pulse generation based on cross-gain modulation in a semiconductor optical amplifier

An approach to ultrawideband pulse generation and distribution over optical fiber