Reconfigurable high-order radio frequency filters based on a wide-bandwidth optical frequency comb

We demonstrated the application of optical frequency combs in the realization of programmable microwave photonic filters. A reconfigurable high-order PF filter based on a wide-bandwidth optical frequency comb was designed, and the increasing of the tap (comb tooth) numbers results in the increasing of the order of the microwave photonic filter. In this article, the repetition frequency of the optical frequency comb is 12.5 GHz, and the optical spectral coverage reaches 25.6 nm. The order of the RF filter obtained in the experiment reaches 256, the free spectrum range (FSR) reaches 11 GHz, the 3dB-passband width is from 300 MHz to 2.6 GHz, and the sidelobe suppression is as high as 26 dB. A progressive optical pulse shaper was used to program the tap weights, which allow us to shape the bandpass of the filter. In addition, by adjusting the spectral distribution of the optical frequency comb, two types of RF filters with different passband shapes can be realized, namely, Gaussian and Sinc filters.