MEMS-SOA Tunable Optoelectronic Oscillator

We present a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) based tunable optoelectronic oscillator. The tunability of the frequency is accomplished by changing the free spectral range of MEMS-semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) sliced broadband optical source in a microwave photonic filter configuration. Tuning range of 1.5 GHz is demonstrated, where the limitation is set by the electrical amplifier bandwidth. The phase noise at a frequency offset of 10 kHz is below 81 dBc/Hz while the side mode noise is measure around −52.37 dBc/Hz. The center wavelength and tuning range can be adapted to larger frequency ranges.