Open AccessPhotonic probing of radio waves for k-space tomography
Author(s) -
Janusz Murakowski,
Garrett J. Schneider,
Shouyuan Shi,
Christopher A. Schuetz,
Dennis W. Prather
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.25.015746
Subject(s) - optics , physics , antenna (radio) , interference (communication) , radio frequency , optical fiber , antenna array , dispersion (optics) , photonics , telecommunications , computer science , channel (broadcasting)
We harness coherent optical processing to simultaneously sense the angle of arrival and the frequency of radio waves. Signals captured by a distributed antenna array are up-converted to optical domain using electro-optic modulators coupled to individual antennas. Employing a common laser source to feed all the modulators ensures spatially coherent up-conversion of radio-frequency (RF) waves to optical beams carried by optical fibers. Fiber-length dispersion extends the spatial aperture of the distributed antenna array into the temporal dimension. The interference of beams emanating from the fibers is captured by a CCD and used to computationally reconstruct RF waves in k-space.