Phase-Only Matched Filtering of Ultrawideband Arbitrary Microwave Waveforms via Optical Pulse Shaping

• Published in: Journal of lightwave technology Vol. 26; no. 15; pp. 2355 - 2363
• Main Authors: Hamidi, E., Weiner, A.M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 2008; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Bandwidth; Filtering; Filtration; Longitudinal waves; Matched filters; Microwave filters; microwave photonics; Microwaves; Optical filters; Optical pulse shaping; Optical pulses; phase filters; pulse compression; Pulse compression methods; Radio frequency; Spectra; Ultra wideband technology; Ultrawideband; ultrawideband (UWB) systems; Waveforms
• ISSN: 0733-8724; 1558-2213
• DOI: 10.1109/JLT.2008.927175

We demonstrate compression of ultrawideband (UWB) microwave arbitrary waveforms via phase-only matched filtering implemented in a programmable hyperfine resolution optical pulse shaper. We synthesize spread-time UWB electrical waveforms and utilize programmable microwave photonic phase filters to impose the opposite of a waveform's spectral phase on its spectrum. This enables us to compress an UWB microwave waveform to its corresponding bandwidth-limited pulse duration via phase filtering. As an example, we present compression of a linear frequency-modulated electrical waveform with > 15 GHz frequency content with almost 200% fractional bandwidth with ~ 733 ps temporal window to a 40-ps duration pulse with more than 14-dB gain in peak power. Our technique is programmable and we believe it is applicable to a wide range of arbitrary spectral phase modulated UWB radio frequency (RF) waveforms.