Simultaneous Multi-Channel Microwave Photonic Signal Processing

Microwave photonic (MWP) systems exploit the advantages of photonics, especially with regards to ultrabroad bandwidth and adaptability, features that are significantly more challenging to obtain in the electronic domain. Thus, MWP systems can be used to realize a number of microwave signal processing functions including, amongst others, waveform generation and radio-frequency spectrum analysis (RFSA). In this paper, we review recent results on fiber and integrated approaches for simultaneous generation of multiple chirped microwave waveforms as well as multi-channel RFSA of ultrahigh repetition optical rate pulse trains