Multi-port Electro-optic Switch Architecture for Efficient Programmable True Time Delay Unit

Recent broadband analog photonic link performance improvements have renewed the interest and activity in developing microwave photonics for broadband radio frequency (RF) signal transmission and signal processing. Increased bandwidths and reduced fiber optic link insertion loss/noise figure accompanied by increased dynamic range have created real insertion opportunities of advanced fiber optic signal distribution manifolds and RF photonic signal processors into antenna-based communications, radar, navigation, and electronic warfare systems. A key photonic integrated circuit module that enables many of the tunable microwave filtering and true-time-delay (TTD) signal processing applications is a low insertion loss, variable optical delay line with fast reconfiguration time. In this proposed effort SRICO will integrate the latest advances in electro-optic technology with low-cost, commercially available components from the telecommunications industry to produce a compact, photonic true time delay unit with faster switching, lower power consumption and wider bandwidth than competing systems. This innovative approach offers 50x reduction in voltage, sub-microsecond switching speeds compared to tens or hundreds of microseconds for bulk devices.