Fully integrated hybrid microwave photonic receiver

Abstract

We report the first demonstration of a fully integrated hybrid microwave photonic receiver (FIH-MWPR), to the best of our knowledge. In FIH-MWPR, All the optoelectronic components, including a laser source, phase modulators, tunable photonic filters based on microring resonators, and photodetectors, are hybrid integrated into the same substrate. Here, all the functionalities except the laser source are monolithically integrated on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) chip, whereas the light is provided by a III-V distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor laser chip. These two photonic integration platforms are combined through the hybrid integration method to demonstrate a completely packaged FIH-MWPR module, which occupies a compact volume of 30mm × 20mm × 10mm. In the experiment, we evaluate the system performance of the FIH-MWPR by measuring critical system performance metrics, including link gain, noise figure (NF), and spur free dynamic range (SFDR). When the FIH-MWPR operates at S-Ku bands (2-18 GHz), its link gain is measured to be -51.9 ~ -58.6 dB, its NF is measured to be 59.7~75.2 dB, and its SFDR is measured to be 89.0~94.1 dB*Hz^2/3. This FIH-MWPR shows the advantages of broad operation bandwidth, tunable microwave photonic signal filtering, and superiority in size, weight, and power efficiency (SWaP), and it would provide a promising path to realize a practical microwave photonic receiver.