Broadband Microwave Signal Processing Enabled by Polarization-Based Photonic Microwave Phase Shifters

A polarization-based photonic microwave phase shifter that implemented with an orthogonal circularly-/linearly-polarized wavelength generator incorporated with a polarizer provides advantages of high scalability, high-speed phase tuning, large operation bandwidth, full-360-degree tunability, flat power response, and compact configuration, making it a key enabler for tunable microwave photonic filtering, optically controlled beamforming, high speed phase coding, large time-bandwidth product signal generation, phase noise measurement, and co-site RF signal cancellation. In this paper, the recent advances of polarization-based photonic microwave phase shifters are reviewed. A general model of the polarization-based photonic microwave phase shifter is established, and the applications of the polarization-based photonic microwave phase shifter are described and discussed.