Microwave Photonics Programs at DARPA

• Published in: Journal of lightwave technology Vol. 32; no. 20; pp. 3428 - 3439
• Main Authors: Ridgway, Richard W., Dohrman, Carl L., Conway, Joshua A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 15.10.2014; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Electrooptic modulators; Microwave filters; Microwave photonics; Optical fibers; Receivers; Electrooptic modulator; high power photodiode; optical fiber links; photonic downconversion; microwave photonics; noise figure; optical phased-locked loops; spurious free dynamic range (SFDR)
• ISSN: 0733-8724; 1558-2213
• DOI: 10.1109/JLT.2014.2326395

Over the past ten years, DARPA has made significant investments toward advancing the field of microwave photonics. This paper reviews DARPA-funded progress in this subject over the past decade. DARPA-funded research has advanced the state-of-the-art for microwave-photonic components, including low noise laser diodes, electrooptic modulators and high power photodiodes, as well as microwave photonic link configurations, including photonic downconversion, reconfigurable optical filters and optical phase-locked loops. These investments have yielded dramatic improvements in spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR). Measured performance includes SFDRs exceeding 115 dB · Hz 2/3 at 16 GHz using broadband externally modulated links; exceeding 120 dB · Hz 2/3 at 10 GHz using sub-octave electrooptic modulators; near 135 dB · Hz 2/3 at 100 MHz using optical phased-locked loops as linear phase demodulators; and exceeding 125 dB · Hz 2/3 at 5 GHz using optical filtering, downconversion and predistortion compensation.