Abstract

The process of true time delay (TTD) has become a highly desired tool for processing of phased array antenna signal for beam steering and coherent detection. Typically phase shifting devices (PSD) are used in phased arrays, which produce beam squint when used at wide bandwidths (>1 GHz) and when fraction bandwidths approach 100%. The inherent problem with PSD’s is that they do not impart each frequency component of the signal with the same time delay, whereas TTD device delay each frequency component by the same delay time. In this paper, we describe a novel optical coherent transient (OCT) technique for programming high bandwidth TTDs with large time-bandwidth products (TBP).

© 2002 Optical Society of America