Microwave Photonic Filter With Two Independently Tunable Passbands Using a Phase Modulator and an Equivalent Phase-Shifted Fiber Bragg Grating

A dual-passband microwave photonic filter (MPF) implemented based on phase-modulation to intensity-modulation (PM-IM) conversion using a phase modulator and an equivalent phase-shifted fiber Bragg grating (EPS-FBG) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The key component in the system is the EPS-FBG, which is designed and fabricated based on the equivalent phase-shift technique. The unique feature of the EPS-FBG is that equivalent phase shifts are introduced to both of the ±1
^st
channels, leading to a notch in each of the two channels. Thus, by implementing PM-IM conversion in the two channels, two passbands are produced. The central frequency of each passband is determined by the wavelength different between the notch and the optical carrier. In the design and fabrication, two phase shifts are introduced to the EPS-FBG to decrease the shape factor, which is defined as the ratio between the 20- and 3-dB bandwidths. In addition, a stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) assisted filter is incorporated in the system for carrier suppression to increase the spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) and decrease the noise figure (NF) of the MPF. An experiment is performed. A dual passband filter with a 3-dB bandwidth and a shape factor of 167.3 MHz and 3.8, and 143.3 MHz and 3.3 for the 1
^st
and 2
^nd
passband is achieved. The frequency tunable ranges of the 1
^st
and 2
^nd
passbands are 5.4 and 7.4 GHz, respectively, with the magnitude variations of about ±0.5 dB during the turning. Due to the SBS-assisted filter, the SFDRs are increased by 7 dB and the NFs are decreased by 10 dB.