Microwave photonic filters via radio frequency bandwidth scaling based on soliton crystal optical micro-combs

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel microwave photonic filtering technique using integrated Kerr micro-combs, achieving high resolution and broad RF bandwidth with reconfigurable programmable functions for advanced RF spectral shaping.

Contribution

It introduces a new RF bandwidth scaling approach utilizing integrated micro-combs and micro-ring resonators for high-resolution, tunable photonic RF filters with programmable transfer functions.

Findings

RF bandwidth of 4.64 GHz achieved

High resolution of 117 MHz demonstrated

Broad RF operation band from 3.28 to 19.4 GHz

Abstract

We demonstrate high-resolution photonic RF filters using an RF bandwidth scaling approach based on integrated Kerr optical micro-combs. By employing both an active nonlinear micro-ring resonator (MRR) as a high-quality micro-comb source and a passive high-Q MRR to slice the shaped comb, a large RF instantaneous bandwidth of 4.64 GHz and a high resolution of 117 MHz are achieved, together with a broad RF operation band covering 3.28 to 19.4 GHz (L to Ku bands) using thermal tuning. We achieve programmable RF transfer functions including binary-coded notch filters and RF equalizing filters with reconfigurable slopes. Our approach is an attractive solution for high performance RF spectral shaping with high performance and flexibility.