Performance limitation of chirped-fiber-Bragg-grating-based photonic microwave notch filter due to group delay and reflectivity ripples

We investigated the performance limitation of a frequency-tunable photonic microwave notch filter incorporating a chirped fiber Bragg grating (FBG) as a group delay line. In particular, we carried out theoretical and experimental studies to analyze the impact of the reflectivity ripple (RR) and group delay ripple (GDR) in the chirped FBG on the output notch performance. The results of experimental and theoretical analyses performed on a photonic microwave notch filter in which an S-bending-based linearly chirped FBG was incorporated, revealed that the notch depth and notch frequency were significantly affected by imperfections in the chirped FBG. The notch depth was found to be decreased by the RRs, whereas significant fluctuations in the notch frequency were caused by the GDRs. On the basis of the obtained results, we conclude that the RR and the GDR are the fundamental factors that degrade the performance of chirped FBG-based photonic microwave filters.