Synthesis of fiber-optic delay line filters

This paper deals with the synthesis of fiber-optic delay line filters and is organized as follows. We show how filters with negative coefficients can be implemented using positive structures and differential detection at the optoelectronic conversion. This possibility implies that not only lowpass, but bandpass and highpass filters with arbitrary transfer functions may be implemented. Synthesis methods for positive filters based on modified versions of well-known time and frequency domain techniques are presented which take into account the restriction on the positive nature of the filter coefficients. We make use of these results to describe the synthesis procedure for arbitrary filters using fiber-optic structures. Some designs of lowpass, bandpass and highpass filters are presented as examples, and a possible implementation of these structures with a view of future optoelectronic integration is presented