Photonic Microwave Channel Selective Filter Incorporating a Thermooptic Switch Based on Tunable Ring Resonators

A photonic microwave (MW) channel selective filter was demonstrated incorporating a 1times2 switch based on two tunable polymeric resonators with different free-spectral ranges (FSRs). Each resonator plays a role as an ON-OFF switch through the thermooptic effect, consisting of two cascaded rings with an electrode formed on one of them. The optical signal carrying the MW signal is routed to either port of the switch and detected to exhibit the filtered output at the frequency determined by the FSR of the corresponding resonator. When the channel centered at 10 GHz was chosen, the extinction ratio was ~30 dB, the bandwidth 1 GHz, and the electrical power consumption 4.1 mW. And for the other channel located at 20 GHz, we have achieved the extinction ratio of ~30 dB, the bandwidth of 2 GHz, and the required power of 8.0 mW. Finally, the crosstalk between the selected and blocked channels was higher than 24 dB.