Abstract
This Letter reports an optically controlled microwave phase shifter with an ultra-wideband working bandwidth and a full 360° phase shifting range based on nonlinear polarization rotation (NPR) in a highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF). A continuous wave probe light is modulated by a polarization modulator (PolM) that is driven by a microwave signal to be phase shifted. The optical carrier and the first-order sidebands of the probe light experience different phase shifts due to the NPR induced by the control light in the HNLF. An optical bandpass filter is used to realize single-sideband modulation of the probe light by removing one of the first-order sidebands, as well as to reject the control light. After detecting by a photodetector, the phase of the recovered microwave signal is continuously tunable by adjusting the power of the control light. The proposed approach is theoretically analyzed and experimentally verified. A full 360° tunable phase shift is realized over an ultra-wideband frequency range from 8 to 38 GHz when the power of the control light is tuned from 0 to 570 mW.
© 2014 Optical Society of America
Full Article | PDF ArticleMore Like This
Wei Li, Wen Ting Wang, Wen Hui Sun, and Ning Hua Zhu
Opt. Lett. 39(6) 1561-1564 (2014)
Wei Li, Wei Yu Wang, Wen Hui Sun, Wen Ting Wang, Jian Guo Liu, and Ning Hua Zhu
Opt. Lett. 39(16) 4758-4761 (2014)
Shilong Pan and Yamei Zhang
Opt. Lett. 37(21) 4483-4485 (2012)