Photonic RF instantaneous frequency measurement system by means of a polarizatio-ndomain interferometer

Abstract

A new photonic RF instantaneous frequency measurement system is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. A frequency measurement independent of the optical input power and microwave modulation index is achieved by using the constructive and destructive ports of a polarization-domain interferometer. Experimental tests yield a peak-to-peak frequency error lower than 200 MHz for a frequency range of 1-18 GHz.

Analysis of System Imperfections in a Photonics-Assisted Instantaneous Frequency Measurement Receiver Based on a Dual-Sideband Suppressed-Carrier Modulation

“…As explained before, the related parameters α I and β I can be computed by first measuring ER I and IL I , and then using Eqs. (8) and (9). Please note that, if the output coupler is not perfectly balanced, the MZI would need to be modelled using 4 different electric field attenuation constants.…”

“…By exploiting the benefits of these technologies, integrated, light-based systems hold the promise for potentially low cost, compact footprint and high-bandwidth IFM equipment. Among all the reported photonic approaches to IFM, those based on detection and processing of optical powers stand out as the most promising for a near and short term practical implementation [6], [8], [9], [11], [12], [14], [15], [19], [20], [24]. These avoid the need of microwave components and circuits (such as detection logarithmic video amplifiers), and only require the use of high sensitivity (i.e, low dark current) photodiodes and high dynamic range transimpedance amplifiers.…”

Instantaneous microwave frequency measurement using four-wave mixing in a chalcogenide chip

“…These applications would greatly benefit from the development of IFM systems capable of extremely high frequency (EHF) band operation, as can be realized by optical processing of microwave signals [2]. Indeed, there have been numerous proposals for implementing high-bandwidth microwave IFM systems using optical components [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”

Large bandwidth and high accuracy photonic-assisted instantaneous microwave frequency estimation system based on an integrated silicon micro-resonator

“…The basic principle behind this photonic technique is to map the unknown microwave frequency to an optical power ratio, which is referred as the amplitude comparison function (ACF). Most reported IFM systems were [1,2,3] built with discrete optoelectronic components and are bulky and expensive. Therefore an integrated IFM system [4] is considered as an effective solution to address this issue.…”