A photonic channelized receiver includes: an optical source, an optical combiner, an electro-optical modulator, an etalon, a wavelength splitter, and a set of detectors. The optical source produces a set of optical signals at spaced wavelengths, and the optical combiner combines the optical signals into a common beam. The electro-optical modulator modulates the common beam with an RF signal to produce sidebands offset from frequencies of the optical signals by the RF signal frequency. The etalon has a periodic transfer function that filters the modulated common beam such that the signals in the filtered, modulated common beam function as receiver channels corresponding to respective RF frequencies. The wavelength splitter separates the common beam into channel output signals whose intensities are a function of the frequency of the RF signal. The detectors measure the intensities of the channel output signals to determine the frequency of the RF signal.
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
This application claims priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/426,403, entitled "Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing Based Photonic RF Spectrum Analyzer," filed Nov. 15, 2002. The disclosure of this provisional patent application is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
A method and apparatus for polarization-independent RF spectrum analysis of an optical source, the apparatus including a coupler for coupling the light from an optical source under test with light from a continuous-wave (CW) laser. A nonlinear apparatus is coupled to the coupler for modulating the electric field of the light from the CW laser using the temporal intensity of the light from the source under test to generate a modulated signal. The nonlinear apparatus is adapted to mitigate or compensate for any phase difference between polarization components of signals propagated through the nonlinear apparatus. A polarizer is coupled to the nonlinear apparatus for generating a linearly polarized signal from the modulated signal. An optical spectrum analyzer is coupled to the polarizer for measuring the optical spectrum of the linearly polarized signal to determine an RF spectrum of the optical source under test.
