University Events

Description: Topic: Photonic Integrated Circuit Technologies for Microwave Photonic Links

Location: Lester W. Cory Conference Room, Science & Engineering Building (SENG), Room 213A

ABSTRACT:
Radar frontend transports and frequency down converts antenna signals. Traditional electronic frontends are built on transistors and diodes. But they are sensitive to electromagnetic interferences and very nonlinear resulting in limited system spurious free dynamic range (SFDR). Thus, it is desirable to replace the electronics with high dynamic range RF photonic links.

In this work, we investigate photonic integrated circuit technologies for high dynamic range integrated RF photonic frontends. We proposed the concept of integrated RF/photonic radar frontends, where an entire RF photonic link is monolithically integrated on a photonic integrate circuit (PIC). The integrated RF photonic link employs optical phase modulation and linear phase demodulation by an Attenuation Counter Propagating Optical Phase Locked Loop (ACP-OPLL). The link achieves frequency down-conversion either by exploiting nonlinear phase modulation inside quantum well phase modulators or by optical sampling. It has the potential to outperform electronics. In addition, photonic integration provides small footprint, lightweight, high power efficiency, and low cost.

NOTE: All ECE Graduate Students are ENCOURAGED to attend.
All interested parties are invited to attend. Open to the public.

Advisor: Dr. Yifei Li
Committee Members: Dr. David A. Brown, Dayalan P. Kasilingam and Dr. David P. Rancour, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering; Dr. Arye Rosen, Rowan University; Dr. Peter Herczfeld, Microwave-Lightwave Engineering Center, Drexel University; Dr. Tariq Manzur, Imaging & Electronic Warfare, NUWC, DIVNPT, NAVSEA

*For further information, please contact Dr. Yifei Li at 508.999.8841, or via email at yifei.li@umassd.edu.