Abstract
Abstract Narrowband microwave generation with tuneable frequency is demonstrated by illuminating a photoconductive semiconductor switch (PCSS) with a burst-mode fibre laser. The whole system is composed of a high-power linearly polarized burst-mode pulsed fibre laser and a linear-state PCSS. To obtain a high-performance microwave signal, a desired envelope of burst is necessary and a pulse pre-compensation technique is adopted to avoid envelope distortion induced by the gain-saturation effect. Resulting from the technique, homogenous peak power distribution in each burst is ensured. The maximum energy of the laser burst pulse reaches 200 μJ with a burst duration of 100 ns at the average power of 10 W, corresponding to a peak power of 4 kW. When the PCSS is illuminated by the burst-mode fibre laser, narrowband microwave generation with tuneable frequency (0.80–1.12 GHz) is obtained with a power up to 300 W. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first demonstration of frequency-tuneable narrowband microwave generation based on a fibre laser. The high-power burst-mode fibre laser reported here has great potential for generating high-power arbitrary microwave signals for a great deal of applicable demands such as smart adaptive radar and intelligent high-power microwave systems.
Highlights
Microwave photonics has attracted increased attention as a novel research field bridging the microwave and optics fields[1,2]
We report an all-fibre temporally tuneable linearly polarized burst-mode laser and generation of highpower microwave signals with gigahertz-level frequency
With continuous pumping and 20 μs inter-burst period, the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) signal would be increased over time and deplete the upper-level population until the signal burst arrives
Summary
Microwave photonics has attracted increased attention as a novel research field bridging the microwave and optics fields[1,2]. Generation of a solid-state microwave signal with ~10 MW peak power and nanosecond pulse duration has been reported[8,9]. The generated high-peak-power microwave signal could directly inherit the temporal profiles of the incident pulse laser such as waveform and frequency, i.e., a temporally modifiable pulsed laser could generate high-power agile microwaves. This microwave generation scheme is more attractive in pulsed-power sources which are designed to deliver a specified amount of energy in a very short time and results in a high peak power for the duration of the pulse[10].
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