New Spectrum-Sliced Microwave Photonic Filter for High-Frequency Signal Processing

A new spectrum-sliced microwave photonic filter exhibiting multitap characteristics, high-frequency operation, and insensitivity to the operating optical wavelength, is presented. It is based on an amplitude-modulated single sliced source and a novel sinusoidal group delay line structure, integrating tap weights and delays in one unit, and enabling multiple-tap signal processing without coherence interference limitations. Experimental results demonstrate the realization of a transversal filter response with 7.8-GHz free spectral range and 40-dB out-of-band rejection ratio.