Tunable Photonic Microwave Delay Line Filter Based on Fabry-Perot Laser Diode

We report the physical implementation of a tunable photonic microwave delay line filter based on injection locking of a single Fabry-Perot laser diode (FP-LD) to a reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA). The laser generates equally spaced multiple wavelengths and a single tapped-delay line can be obtained with a dispersive single mode fiber. The filter frequency response depends on the wavelength spacing and can be tuned by the temperature of the FP-LD varying lasing wavelength. For amplitude control of the wavelengths, we use gain saturation of the RSOA and the offset between the peak wavelengths of the FP-LD and the RSOA to decrease the amplitude difference in the wavelengths. From the temperature change of total 15 degrees C, the filter, consisting of four flat wavelengths and two wavelengths with slightly lower amplitudes on both sides, has shown tunability of about 390 MHz.