Tunable bandpass microwave photonic filter with ultrahigh stopband attenuation and skirt selectivity

we propose and demonstrate a bandpass microwave photonic filter (MPF) with ultrahigh stopband attenuation and skirt selectivity based on a simple signal cancellation technique. By injecting two phase modulated signals located on opposite sides of two resonant gain peaks of a Fabry-Perot semiconductor optical amplifier (FP-SOA), two microwave frequency responses can be generated by the two input signals, respectively. The two frequency responses will add together within the passband but cancel each other out within the stopband, thus generating a MPF with simultaneous ultrahigh stopband attenuation and skirt selectivity. In the experiment the obtained MPF exhibits single passband in the range from 0 to 18 GHz and is tunable from 4 to 16 GHz by adjusting the laser wavelengths. During the tuning process the maximum stopband attenuation is 76.3 dB and the minimum 30-dB to 3-dB bandwidth shape factor is 3.5. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America