High-Q, tunable, photonic microwave single passband filter based on stimulated Brillouin scattering and fiber Bragg grating filtering

We experimentally demonstrate a single passband, photonic microwave bandpass filter scheme based on stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in optical fiber. A single side band (SSB)-modulated probe and a single frequency, tunable pump beam that have been produced by the combination of conventional Mach-Zehnder modulators and fiber Bragg grating filters, are used for the generation of SBS phenomenon in a 1-km long highly nonlinear dispersion-shifted optical fiber. Using the proposed scheme a single microwave passband with a ∼26 MHz bandwidth is readily achieved over a radio frequency tuning range from 1.3 to 9.3 GHz. The maximum Q-factor is measured to be ∼360.