Photonics for phased array systems

In the last several years, there have been significant advances in photonics for phased arrays. In this paper we present results in two key areas: 1) For receive-only arrays, we report on improvements in analog fiber links that have resulted in new records for the intrinsic noise figure - i.e. noise figure without any RF amplification - of less than 6 dB at 12 GHz and SFDR of 120 dB in a 1 Hz bandwidth; 2) For arrays that both transmit and receive, we report on a new type of link we call TIPRx, for transmit-isolating photonic receive link. This new type of link has significantly better T/R isolation than a ferrite circulator, and over a much wider bandwidth. It also has gain like an LNA and low noise figure. Hence a single TIPRx link is the functional equivalent of several individual RF components.