Microwave photonics is an inter-disciplinary field that studies the interaction between microwave and optical signals for applications such as telecommunications, radar, sensors and instrumentation. These applications are calling for ever-increasing speed, bandwidth and dynamic range. The applications also require small size, light weight, large tunability, and low power consumption. Digital electronics is the most widely used approach nowadays for these applications. However, its speed is normally less than several gigahertzes, limited by the electronic sampling rate. The unique capabilities offered by modern photonics for processing ultra wideband, high-frequency signals make it a promising alternative for wideband microwave applications.

The research activities in the Microwave Photonics Research Laboratory are focused on the generation, distribution, control and processing of microwave signals based on photonics. Examples include radio over fiber, radars, antenna remoting, and broadband phased array beamforming. Photonics also offers unique capabilities for processing of wideband and high-frequency signals, such as long and tunable time delay, spectrum analysis, frequency conversion, signal and waveform synthesis, microwave filtering, microwave channelization, microwave correlation, and data conversion. Another advantage of photonic processing is that the signal is processed in the optical domain. For applications such as fiber-optic communications and radio-over-fiber systems, it is convenient with this technology since there is no need to perform extra opto-electronic and electro-optic conversions, which would simplify the systems.

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