RF Engineering Meets Optoelectronics: Progress in Integrated Microwave Photonics

Integrated microwave photonics (IMWP) is concerned with applying integrated photonics technology to microwave photonic systems. It is one of the most active and exciting areas of current research and development in microwave photonics (MWP), building upon the impressive foundations of integrated photonics in various systems involving material platforms such as indium phosphide (InP) and silicon nitride (Si3N4). The aim of this article is to explain to the wider microwave engineering community the significance of the new field of IMWP and to describe how it may potentially be applied to improve the performance and capabilities of microwave and millimeter-wave (mmWave) systems. Just as the microwave monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC) has revolutionized active microwave circuits, IMWP is poised to open up new applications for microwave engineering that take advantage of the unique functionalities offered by photonics, especially with regard to its large bandwidth.