Optics and Photonics Society of Iran

In this paper, a novel scheme for measuring instantaneous frequency of a microwave signal based on microwave photonics technology is proposed and theoretically investigated. In the proposed structure, a microwave signal with its frequency to be measured is applied to two optical intensity modulators with adjustable chirp parameters and modulated on a continuous wave light. Then these two intensity modulated optical signals sent to two dispersive elements with different lengths and dispersion characteristics which leading to two different optical power penalties. There is a relationship between the ratio of the optical power penalties and microwave frequency. Therefore, by measuring the powers of the two signals at the output of the two photodetectors, the microwave frequency can be estimated. One of the main advantages of the proposed IFM is that its measurement range and resolution can be tuned by adjusting the chirp parameters of the two intensity modulators.