Reconfigurable microwave photonic transversal filter based on an integrated Kerr comb

A reconfigurable microwave photonic filter (MPF) based on an integrated Kerr comb source was proposed and demonstrated. By employing an on-chip micro-ring resonator (MRR), a broadband Kerr comb with a large number of comb lines was generated and used as a high-quality multi-wavelength source for the MPF, which greatly reduced the size and cost. The enhanced performance of the MPF was theoretically analysed and systematically characterized. Due to the large channel number and high reconfigurability of the scheme, the MPF features an improved Q factor and wideband tunability. The experimental results matches well with theory, verifying the feasibility of our approach as a solution towards implementing highly reconfigurable MPFs with reduced system complexity.