Integrated microwave photonic true-time delay with interferometric delay enhancement based on Brillouin scattering and microring resonators

Luke McKay, Moritz Merklen*, Yang Liu, Alex Cramer, Jordan Maksymow, Andrew Chilton, Kunlun Yan, Duk Yong Choi, Stephen J. Madden, Richard Desalvo, Benjamin J. Eggleton

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    17 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    True-time delays are important building blocks in modern radio frequency systems that can be implemented using integrated microwave photonics, enabling higher carrier frequencies, improved bandwidths, and a reduction in size, weight, and power. Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) offers optically-induced continuously tunable delays and is thus ideal for applications that require programmable reconfiguration but previous approaches have been limited by large SBS gain requirements. Here, we overcome this limitation by using radio-frequency interferometry to enhance the Brillouin-induced delay applied to the optical sidebands that carry RF signals, while controlling the phase of the optical carrier with integrated silicon nitride microring resonators. We report a delay tunability over 600 ps exploiting an enhancement factor of 30, over a bandwidth of 1 GHz using less than 1 dB of Brillouin gain utilizing a photonic chip architecture based on Brillouin scattering and microring resonators.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)36020-36032
    Number of pages13
    JournalOptics Express
    Volume28
    Issue number24
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 23 Nov 2020

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Integrated microwave photonic true-time delay with interferometric delay enhancement based on Brillouin scattering and microring resonators'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this