Tunable dual-passband microwave photonic filter with a fixed frequency interval using phase-to-intensity modulation conversion by stimulated Brillouin scattering.

An approach to realizing a highly selective and stable tunable dual-passband microwave photonic filter (MPF) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated, in which two passbands have a fixed frequency interval. The MPF is achieved based on phase-to-intensity modulation (PM-IM) conversion by stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). The kernel of the proposed scheme is generating a two-tone pump by first frequency-downshifting the optical carrier through self-induced SBS in a spool of single-mode fiber (SMF), and then modulating it in carrier-suppressed double-sideband modulation mode. Making use of Brillouin frequency shift difference between the SMF and the high nonlinear fiber used for PM-IM conversion, two passbands with a fixed frequency interval equal to 2 times the Brillouin frequency shift difference between the two fibers can be achieved. Through simply varying the modulation frequency, the two passbands can be synchronously shifted back and forth. In the experiment, a tunable dual-passband MPF with a fixed frequency interval of 2.434 GHz is demonstrated in the frequency range of 0-9.644 GHz, where the out-of-band rejection ratio and the 3-dB bandwidth of the passbands are measured to be larger than 20 dB and smaller than 57 MHz, respectively.