S-Parameters Characterization of Microwave Photonics Networks

As the use of opto-microwave systems having microwave modulation bandwidth is increasing, the efficient measurement of opto-electronic S-parameters will be very useful to their overall design and characterization. A new generation of tools is required for the measurement of fundamentals parameters such as the microwave frequency response, bandwidth, gain and return loss of microwave photonic components. Current lightwave measurement techniques are primitive when compared with conventional RF and microwave network analysis. A solution for accurate measurements is a system based on the development of an automated bilateral calibration which could be implemented into a millimetre network analyser (modulation frequency exceeding 20GHz) in order to fully characterize some optical and opto-electronic components. This lightwave network analysis is based on the microwave modulation response of optical components and optical fibres as lines of transmission, which require technologically compatible standards of calibration, along with an extended definition of S-parameters.