Widely tunable single-bandpass microwave photonic filter based on polarization processing of a nonsliced broadband optical source

We propose a new scheme of microwave photonic filter (MPF) based on the polarization processing of a broadband optical source (BOS), which features single-bandpass response and a wide span of operation bandwidth. The BOS is orthogonally polarized by a polarization division multiplexing emulator (PDME) with a tunable time delay between the two polarization states and incident at +/- 45 degrees to one principle axis of a polarization modulator (PolM). The PDME cascades a PolM, and a polarizer realizes a microwave modulation making the phase of the carrier able to be tuned while +/- 1st sidebands remain unchanged, which after propagating in a dispersive medium results in a tunable single-bandpass response in the RF domain. We experimentally verify the MPF. By adjusting the time delay and the optical spectrum bandwidth, the passband center frequency is continuously tuned from DC to 20 GHz and the 3 dB passband bandwidth changes while the optical spectrum bandwidth ranges from 1 to 4 nm. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America