Photonic Integrated Microwave Phase Shifter up to the mm-Wave Band With Fast Response Time in Silicon-on-Insulator Technology

Abstract

Abstract-An integrated silicon-on-insulator microwave photonic phase shifter is demonstrated, based on an optical deinterleaver providing box-like transfer function and a reversebiased pn-junction waveguide optical phase shifter. The photonic integrated circuit is proved to precisely control the phase of microwave signals in a range of more than 400° with a fast reconfiguration time of 1 ns, with a broad bandwidth of more than 6 GHz around an RF carrier flexibly selectable between 10 and 16 GHz, and limited in-band RF power variations. Moreover, thanks to the periodic behavior of the deinterleaver, the device is demonstrated to correctly control the phase of signals in the mm-wave band (> 30 GHz) as well. The performance guaranteed by the proposed microwave phase shifter suggests its use in demanding applications as rapidly reconfiguring phased array antennas in future wireless communications systems.

Recent Trends and Advances of Silicon-Based Integrated Microwave Photonics

“…A SOI based photonic-integrated PS was reported in [88]. The PS simultaneously matches the demand for wide phase-shift range, broad bandwidth, low in-band power oscillations and fast reconfiguration speed.…”

“…Compared to a purely electronic microwave phase shifter, an integrated photonic phase shifter can operate at an ultra-compact form factor while offering higher bandwidth. Keeping with this trend, we investigate three implementations of an all optical microwave phase shifters on the silicon platform: a Bragg grating based approach offering dual capability of a phase shifter (PS) and a true time delay (TTD) unit [87], a scheme involving cascaded microring resonators that employs two photon induced thermal heating for phase tunability [34], and finally, a fully reconfigurable and fast PN junction-based PS [88].…”

“…(a) Schematic and operation principle of the proposed photonic integrated phase shifter reported in[88]. LS: laser source; SSB EOM: single-sideband electro-optical modulator.…”

Photonic generation of broadband RFphase shifter

“…The underlying principle is based on frequency shifting an optical carrier via single side band -suppressed carrier (SSB-SC) modulation using RF carrier of interest followed by the re-insertion of a copy of the original optical carrier that is shifted in phase by a variety of means such as optical phase modulator [1], p-n junction [2], z-cut lithium niobite crystal (LiNbO3) [3] and using precise setting of polarization controller [4]. All these methods require either an optical deinterleaver filter [2], precise polarization control and polarizer [3][4] or suffers from lack of phase shift linearity and range. We proposed a circuit architecture based on a parallel pair of dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder modulators (DP-MZM) that requires no additional control or filter for proper operation.…”

Brillouin-based phase shifter in a silicon waveguide

“…There have been many approaches of utilizing an optical phase shift to achieve an RF phase shifter in IMWP systems. For example, IMWP phase shifters have been realized based on the electro-optic effect utilizing free carrier dispersion and multiplexing/ de-multiplexing of the optical carrier and sidebands [11]. Another way of generating the optical phase shift on a chip is with resonant structures, such as rings and gratings [12][13][14].…”