An Ultraefficient Broadband Photonic Channelizer Based on Polarization-Division Multiplexing and Integrated Dual-Polarization Coherent Detection Receiver

We propose and experimentally demonstrate an ultraefficient broadband photonic channelizer. By polarization-division multiplexing the received signal and using dual-output Hartley image-reject receiving topology, 4N channels can be generated with only (N +1)-line signal optical frequency comb (OFC) and N-line local oscillator (LO) OFC, and the frequency interval of the OFC is reduced to half of the typical value. With the use of the integrated dual-polarization coherent detection receiver (DP-CDR), the required quadrature optical hybrid (QOH) and the balanced photodetectors (BPDs) are reduced to half. The system size is reduced and stability is improved. Besides, assisted with a digital signal processor (DSP) algorithm, the IQ imbalance can be compensated, and approximately, ideal image rejection can be realized. A proof-of-concept experiment is carried out. A 2-14-GHz wideband signal is successfully divided into 12 channels with 1-GHz bandwidth by applying four-line signal OFC and three-line LO OFC. The image rejection ratio (IRR), channel isolation (CI), and spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) are also measured and discussed.