Comparative study of noise performance of microwave photonic filters based on coherent and incoherent multi-wavelength light sources

We provide a comparative study of the noise performance of microwave photonic filtered links implemented with two different multi-wavelength sources: an optical frequency comb generator and a spectrally sliced optical source. The evaluation is based on bit-error-rate measurements of transmitted data as well as radio-frequency spectrum analysis of clock signals distributed through the link. Our results show that optical frequency comb generators not only provide a better noise performance, but they make a much better use of the available optical bandwidth, which translates into a potential further reach in the microwave link. These results add to the list of beneficial attributes of opto-electronic frequency comb generators for microwave photonic signal processing.