A broadband optical source based optoelectronic oscillator with widely tunable frequency range

A novel optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) with widely tunable frequency range is experimentally demonstrated. A single band-pass microwave photonic filter serves as an oscillating mode selector, which is composed by a broadband source, a variable optical delay line (VODL) based interferometer, an intensity modulator and a dispersive element. Thanks to the non-carrier-suppression effect of the selector, the novel OEO can generate notching-free widely tunable frequency.