Efficient architecture for WDM photonic microwave filters

A novel technique to reduce the number of components in photonic microwave filters implemented using multiple optical carriers (wavelength-division multiplexing) and dispersive media is presented and experimentally demonstrated. This technique is based on using jointly dispersive and nondispersive media to reuse the optical carriers and, therefore, to reduce the number of filter components. The technique allows the implementation of filters showing N×M taps using N+M components instead of N×M components, as required in previous proposals.