Performance investigation of a dispersion controlled spectrum sliced microwave photonic filter with various slice characteristics

Recently we have proposed a dispersion controlled spectrum slicing technique, which provides both spectrum slicing of the broadband source and phase control function that impresses localized dispersion for the optical slices. In this paper, we extend this earlier concept by deriving transfer functions and investigating the performance of the dispersion controlled spectrum sliced microwave photonic signal processor for various slice characteristics. Through analysis, simulation and experimental results, we demonstrate that the RF filter performance at high frequency of operation can be greatly enhanced, for arbitrary spectrum slice shapes, slice bandwidths and various filter free spectral range values.