A Tunable Dual-Passband Microwave Photonic Filter Based on Optically Injected Distributed Feedback Semiconductor Lasers and Dual-Output Mach-Zehnder Modulator

Jiayi Zhao,Pengcheng Deng,Runze Yu,Ruoxian Liu,Mingshan Zhao,Jingjing Hu,Yiying Gu

doi:10.3390/app10103631

Jiayi Zhao, Pengcheng Deng + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/app10103631

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Abstract

In this paper, a novel approach to achieving a wideband tunable dual-passband microwave photonic filter (MPF) is proposed based on optical-injected distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor lasers and a dual-output Mach–Zehnder modulator (DOMZM). The fundamental concepts for realizing the MPF are the wavelength-selective amplification effect and the period-one oscillation state under optically injected DFB lasers. These effects provide a widely tunable range of center frequency, along with high flexibility and low insertion loss. The proposed MPF is experimentally demonstrated, showing that the dual-passband center frequency in the MPF can be tuned independently from 19 to 37 GHz by adjusting the detuning frequency and injection ratio. Meanwhile, the insertion loss of the system is about 15 dB when there is no optical or electrical amplifier in the MPF link. The out-of-band suppression ratio of the MPF is more than 20 dB, which can be improved by adjusting the power of the two optical signals.

Highlights

Microwave signal filtering plays an important role in microwave signal processing fields [1,2], such as wireless local area network (WLAN) communication, mobile communication and radar systems.Once inferior to traditional electrical microwave filters [3], filters based on photonic links have come to be considered an effective solution for low transmission-loss, high-frequency, large-bandwidth microwave signal processing
We propose a new dual-passband microwave photonic filter (MPF) based on optical-injected distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor lasers and a dual-output Mach–Zehnder modulator (DOMZM), with the merits of widely tunable range of center frequency, high flexibility and low insertion loss
An experiment based on the proposed dual-passband MPF configuration shown in Figure 1 was performed to verify the effectiveness of the approach