Photonics-assisted serial channelized radio-frequency measurement system with nyquist-bandwidth detection

Abstract

Based on serial channelization and coherent detection, a radio-frequency (RF) measurement scheme with a Nyquist-bandwidth detector is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. With a wavelength scanning structure, multiple RF channels serial in the time domain are implemented. A coherent receiving module based on an optical hybrid and balanced photodetectors (BPDs) is constructed to reduce the receiver bandwidth and the bandwidth of the follow-up electronic devices. In this paper, a six-channel 3-GHz-spacing channelizer, with 18-GHz receiving bandwidth and 1.5-GHz BPD, is demonstrated. In addition, multifrequency signals and a linear frequency modulation signal with the slope of 4.53 MHz/μs are tested.