Low-Loss Ultrawideband Programmable RF Photonic Phase Filter for Spread Spectrum Pulse Compression

• Published in: IEEE transactions on microwave theory and techniques Vol. 63; no. 12; pp. 4178 - 4187
• Main Authors: Hyoung-Jun Kim, Rashidinejad, Amir, Weiner, Andrew M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.12.2015; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Bandwidth; Bandwidths; Chirp filter; Electronic warfare; finite impulse response filters; jamming; microwave photonics; Military communications; optical frequency combs; Optical interferometry; Optical losses; optical processing; Optical pulse compression; Optical pulse shaping; phase filter; Photonics; programmable filters; pulse compression; Radio frequency; Spread spectrum
• ISSN: 0018-9480; 1557-9670
• DOI: 10.1109/TMTT.2015.2495172

We demonstrate a low-loss, ultrawideband (UWB), programmable radio frequency photonic phase filter utilizing a broadband optical frequency comb, interferometric pulse shaping configuration, and a balanced photodetector for spread spectrum pulse compression. We present UWB linear frequency-chirped pulse compression with bandwidths exceeding 7 GHz. The filter insertion loss for these experiments can be as low as 0.5 dB. In addition, the bandwidth and chirp rate of the phase filter are programmable. To further illustrate the programmability of the proposed filter, we report pulse compression experiments for UWB Costas sequences with bandwidth over 6 GHz. Finally, we perform a spread-spectrum jamming-resistant pulse compression experiment with the chirp filter, where a processing gain of ~ 17.3 dB, proportional to the time-bandwidth product of the filter, enables the recovery of a transmitted UWB signal in the presence of jamming.