Tunable and wideband microwave photonic phase shifter based on a single-sideband polarization modulator and a polarizer

Abstract

A novel microwave photonic phase shifter based on a single-sideband (SSB) polarization modulator (PolM) and a polarizer is proposed and demonstrated. In the SSB-PolM, two SSB intensity-modulated signals with a phase difference of π along two orthogonal polarization directions are generated. With the polarizer to combine the two signals, the phase of the optical microwave signal can be tuned from -180 to 180 deg by simply adjusting the polarization direction of the polarizer, whereas the amplitude keeps unchanged. An experiment is carried out. A full-range tunable phase shift in the frequency range of 11-43 GHz is achieved. The flat power response, power independent operation, and high stability of the proposed microwave photonic phase shifter is also confirmed.