Ultra-Low-Loss Silicon Nitride Optical Beamforming Network for Wideband Wireless Applications

作者：Liu Yuan; Wichman Adam R; Isaac Brandon; Kalkavage Jean; Adles Eric J; Clark Thomas R; Klamkin Jonathan

来源：IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, 2018, 24(4): 8300410.

DOI：10.1109/JSTQE.2018.2827786

• Microwave photonics
• photonic integrated circuits
• true time delays
• optical ring resonators
• millimeter wave communication
• phased arrays

Three optical ring resonator (ORR)-based integrated ultra-low-loss silicon nitride 1 x 4 optical beamforming networks (OBFNs) for millimeter-wave (mmW) beamsteering are reported. The group delay ripple of multi-ORR delay line was theoretically optimized and quantitatively studied by applying a genetic algorithm. The optimized 3-ORR delay true time delay (TTD) responses were experimentally achieved with 208.7 ps and 172.4 ps of delay tuning range for bandwidth of 6.3 GHz and 8.7 GHz, corresponding to a phase shift of 17.1 pi and 14.1 pi for 41 GHz mmW signal. The TTD performance of the 3-ORR delay line was also verified by controlling the delay of 3 Gbps data stream. A 22 degrees beamsteering angle equivalent OBFN delay distribution was achieved for 41 GHz half-wavelength dipole antenna array. Both the theoretical analysis and experiments exhibit that the topology with one ring shared could balance the system complexity and TTD bandwidth well. Using heterodyne up-conversion technology and a single delay path, 41 GHz mmW signal with 3 Gbps OOK NRZ data modulation was generated and delayed.

• 出版日期2018-8