Photonic downconversion with tunable wideband phase shift

A microwave photonic frequency downconversion system with wideband and continuous phase-shift function is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. In the proposed system, a radio frequency (RF) and a local oscillator (LO) signal drive two arms of a dual-drive Mach-Zehnder modulator (DMZM). A fiber Bragg grating (FBG) is used for reflecting the first-order sidebands of both RF and LO signals. Due to phase independence between RF and LO optical sidebands, the phase-shifting operation for an output intermediate frequency (IF) signal can be implemented either by adjusting the bias voltage of DMZM or by controlling the optical wavelength of laser. Experimental results demonstrate a full 0° to 360° phase shift, while an RF signal between 12 GHz to 20 GHz is downconverted to IFs below 4 GHz. The phase deviation is measured less than 2°, and the fluctuation of magnitude response is measured less than ±1  dB over a wideband frequency range.