Reconfigurable silicon integrated RF photonic filter toward wireless communication

Integrated microwave photonic filters (IMPFs) are capable of offering unparalleled reconfigurability. However, to achieve high reconfigurability, complicated system structures and modulation formats are always required, which put great pressure on power consumption and controlment. Here, we propose a streamlined architecture for a wideband and highly reconfigurable IMPF on the silicon photonics platform. For various practical filter responses and avoiding complex auxiliary devices and bias drift problems, a phase-modulated flexible sideband cancellation method is employed based on the intensity-consistent single-stage-adjustable cascaded-microring (ICSSA-CM). The IMPF exhibits an operation band extends to mm-wave (≥ 30 GHz) and other extraordinary performances including high spectral resolution of 220 MHz and large rejection ratio of 60 dB are obtained. Moreover, Gbps-level RF wireless communications are demonstrated for the first time towards real-world scenarios.