Simple microwave photonic downconversion channelizer based on multi-wavelength laser sources

Abstract

This work presents a simple microwave photonic downconversion channelizer based on multi-wavelength laser sources. The design of two laser diode (LD) arrays enables signal multiplexing and simultaneous multichannel downconversion processing, which provide stable, relatively flat, and strong multi-frequency combs. A proof-of-concept experiment was taken, showing that 14.375–17.75 GHz broadband radio frequency (RF) signals were successfully downconverted to the same intermediate frequency (IF) and were sliced into four subchannels with 875 MHz bandwidth showing excellent image rejection and channel uniformity, which agrees with the simulation results. The spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) of the proposed RF channelizer is 100 d B H z 2 / 3 , the image rejection is over 28 dB, and the frequency measurement error is less than ± 6 M H z . Replacing optical filters with electrical filters, the proposed simple optoelectronic hybrid reconfigurable microwave photonic channelizer system acquits stable performance and high maturity and meets the application requirements, behaving with stupendous potential in fields such as radar, satellite communication, electronic warfare, and others.