Photonic microwave true time delays for phased array antennas using a 49 GHz FSR integrated optical micro-comb source [Invited]

Xingyuan Xu; Jiayang Wu; Thach G. Nguyen; Tania Moein; Sai T. Chu; Brent E. Little; Roberto Morandotti; Arnan Mitchell; David J. Moss

doi:10.1364/PRJ.6.000B30

Journals >Photonics Research >Volume 6 >Issue 5 >Page B30 > Article

Photonics Research
Vol. 6, Issue 5, B30 (2018)

Photonic microwave true time delays for phased array antennas using a 49 GHz FSR integrated optical micro-comb source [Invited]

Xingyuan Xu^1,†, Jiayang Wu^1,†, Thach G. Nguyen², Tania Moein¹..., Sai T. Chu³, Brent E. Little⁴, Roberto Morandotti^5,6,7, Arnan Mitchell² and David J. Moss^1,*|Show fewer author(s)

Author Affiliations

¹Centre for Micro-Photonics, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia

²ARC Centre of Excellence for Ultrahigh-bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS), RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3001, Australia

³Department of Physics and Material Science, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Hong Kong, China

⁴State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi’an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an 710119, China

⁵INRS-Énergie, Matériaux et Télécommunications, 1650 Boulevard Lionel-Boulet, Varennes, Québec J3X 1S2, Canada

⁶National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics, St. Petersburg, Russia

⁷Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China

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DOI: 10.1364/PRJ.6.000B30 Cite this Article Set citation alerts

Xingyuan Xu, Jiayang Wu, Thach G. Nguyen, Tania Moein, Sai T. Chu, Brent E. Little, Roberto Morandotti, Arnan Mitchell, David J. Moss, "Photonic microwave true time delays for phased array antennas using a 49 GHz FSR integrated optical micro-comb source [Invited]," Photonics Res. 6, B30 (2018) Copy Citation Text

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Abstract

We demonstrate significantly improved performance of a microwave true time delay line based on an integrated optical frequency comb source. The broadband micro-comb (over 100 nm wide) features a record low free spectral range (FSR) of 49 GHz, resulting in an unprecedented record high channel number (81 over the C band)—the highest number of channels for an integrated comb source used for microwave signal processing. We theoretically analyze the performance of a phased array antenna and show that this large channel count results in a high angular resolution and wide beam-steering tunable range. This demonstrates the feasibility of our approach as a competitive solution toward implementing integrated photonic true time delays in radar and communications systems.

Keywords

Nonlinear optics, integrated optics Phased-array radar Radio frequency photonics