On-Chip Reconfigurable Microwave Photonic Processor

Microwave photonic processors leverage the modern photonics technique to process the microwave signal in the optical domain, featuring high speed and broad bandwidth. Based on discrete optical and microwave components, different microwave photonic processors are reported. Due to the limitation of the opto-electronic components, most of the realized processors are designed to serve a specific demand. With the booming development of photonic integrated circuits (PICs), new possibilities are opened for the implementation of integrated microwave photonic processors. By using the high-precision planar fabrication process, on-chip microwave photonic processors are enabled to have unprecedently full reconfigurability to perform multiple processing tasks. An overview regarding our recent work on reconfigurable microwave photonic processors is presented with an emphasis on silicon photonics integrated solutions.