Noise Comparison of RF Photonic Filters Based on Coherent and Incoherent Multiwavelength Sources

摘要

A filtered microwave photonic (MWP) linkimplemented with an optical frequency comb as a multitapoptical source offers a significant improvement in noisecharacteristics when compared to a spectrally sliced broadbandincoherent source with the same number of taps and identicaltap delay. Our results show that frequency combs also enable abetter use of the optical bandwidth for filtering with minimumnoise-induced fluctuations. These results highlight the potentialof optical frequency comb technology to operate over largedistances in MWP filter links.