Time–frequency analysis of microwave signals based on stimulated Brillouin scattering

Abstract

An approach to evolving the photonics-based real-time Fourier transform or microwave frequency measurement system into a time–frequency analysis (TFA) system is proposed by adding a new measurement dimension to the system. Combining the above approach with stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS)-assisted frequency-to-time mapping, two TFA links, namely the parallel SBS link and the time-division SBS link, are proposed. The parallel SBS link can be utilized to perform real-time TFA of microwave signals. A simulation is made to verify its feasibility by analyzing signals in multiple formats. The time-division SBS link has a simpler and reconfigurable structure, which can realize a high-resolution TFA of periodic signals using the time segmentation and accumulation technique. An experiment is performed for the time-division SBS link. The multi-dimensional reconfigurability of the system is experimentally demonstrated. An analysis bandwidth of 3.9 GHz, an analysis frequency up to 20 GHz, and a frequency resolution of 15 MHz are demonstrated, respectively.