Investigation of a selectable multi-passband microwave photonic filter based on cascaded optical comb filters

A multi-passband microwave photonic filter (MPF) with selectable passband frequency, spanning 0–20 GHz frequency range, is proposed, and experimentally demonstrated, in which passband frequency can be flexibly selected within a maximum passband number to four. The scheme is based on the generation of tunable optical comb lines using a broadband optical source sliced by cascaded optical comb filters, achieved by connecting an in-line birefringence fiber filter and a reconfigurable Lyot filter in series, such that various filter tap spacing and spectral combinations are obtained for the configuration of the MPF. The proposed MPF can operate with four different passband states, namely, single-, dual-, triple-, and quadruple-passband, only by adjusting polarization states of the cascaded optical comb filters. All these passbands are with a 3-dB bandwidth varying from 200 to 460 MHz and more than 20-dB sidelobe suppression.