Silicon Photonics Enabled Hyper-wideband RF Receiver With > 85% Instantaneous Bandwidth

IEEE We demonstrate the first-ever silicon photonics enabled hyper-wideband RF spread-spectrum link. A hybrid III/V-silicon photonic mode-locked laser encoded with a four-channel silicon photonic phase encoder is used to generate optical carriers that coherently demodulate a received RF signal spanning an instantaneous bandwidth greater than 85% of the center frequency (12GHz/14GHz). This allows low-speed ( & lt;3GHz) electronics to be used in place of the traditional costly and high-power wide-bandwidth electronics used in an all-electronic hyper-wideband link. In addition, integrated highly-tunable optical notch filters are successfully used to reject unwanted narrowband interference, with rejection ratio and tunability that surpass conventional wireless technology.