Achieving the upper bound time-bandwidth product for radio-frequency arbitrary waveform generation

In this paper we present an innovative photonic strategy to generate arbitrary microwave and millimeter-wave electrical pulses with the maximum possible time-bandwidth product and broadly tunable center frequency. The proposed approach incorporates fine-resolution pulse shaping, optical interferometry and the concept of frequency-to-time mapping in order to enable independent control over the temporal amplitude, temporal phase and center frequency of the generated radio-frequency waveforms. Also, the time-bandwidth product of these pulses extends to more than twice that of conventional frequency-to-time mapping techniques. Basic theoretical analysis is carried out and validated by numerical simulations as well as experiments. A length 15 Costas frequency-hopping sequence realization is implemented to further portray the potentials of this technique.