Tunable Single Bandpass Microwave Photonic Filter With an Improved Dynamic Range

A tunable single bandpass microwave photonic filter (MPF) with an improved spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) using a dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder modulator (DP-MZM) and a phase-shifted fiber Bragg grating (PS-FBG) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The DP-MZM is employed to generate an equivalent phase-modulated (EPM) signal with an adjustable optical carrier to sideband ratio. The PS-FBG is used as an optical notch filter to remove one sideband of the EPM signal to convert the EPM signal to a single-sideband intensity-modulated signal. At the output of a photodetector, a microwave signal is detected. The entire operation is equivalent to a single passband MPF. The tunability is achieved by tuning the wavelength the optical carrier. The SFDR of the MPF is improved due to the gain enhancement by a partial suppression of the optical carrier. An experiment is performed. A single bandpass MPF with a passband width of 150 MHz and a frequency-tunable range of ~5.5 GHz with an improved SFDR by 11 dB is demonstrated.