Microwave Photonic Delay Line With Separate Tuning of the Optical Carrier

Abstract

Significant performance improvement for photonic delay lines in microwave-photonics based on a new concept of separately tuning the optical carrier is proposed and analyzed. Optical microresonator delay lines using a balanced SCISSOR design with additional resonators to separately tune the carrier phase delay to provide a true-time-delay for the broadband microwave signal are presented. Significant improvements in broadband tunable delay and devices losses are predicted.