Photonic high-fidelity storage and Doppler frequency shift of broadband RF pulse signals

Abstract

A microwave photonic system which can simultaneously realize the functions of rapidly tunable Doppler frequency shift (DFS) and high fidelity storage of broadband RF signals is proposed and verified. Single-sideband carrier-suppression modulation combined with dual-AOM frequency shifting ensures large-range and fast-responding DFS. And time-gated semiconductor amplifier (SOA) based fiber delay loop can realize high-fidelity RF pulse storage with high extinction ratio switching and amplification characteristics of time-gated SOA. A spurious rejection ratio greater than 40 dB, tuning range of DFS greater than ± 3 MHz, response speed of DFS less than 30 ns, and high fidelity storage of 4 GHz-12 GHz RF signals with greater than 381 circulations (corresponding 80 us delay time) are realized by the proposed structure. The maximum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is 13.6 dB within 381 circulations. Based on the experimental data, the simulation results show that the delay time also could be extended to 10 times more.