Photonic generation of microwave arbitrary waveforms

In this paper, techniques to generate microwave arbitrary waveforms based on all-fiber solutions are reviewed, with an emphasis on the system architectures based on direct space-to-time pulse shaping, spectral-shaping and wavelength-to-time mapping, temporal pulse shaping, and photonic microwave delay-line filtering. The generation of phase-coded and frequency-chirped microwave waveforms is discussed. The challenges in the implementation of the systems for practical applications are also discussed. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.