Design and analysis of a tunable microwave photonic delay line in X band

In this paper design and analysis of a tunable microwave photonic delay line is presented. Challenges and practical considerations of microwave and optical components are discussed. The design process and important parameters of the structure are considered. A 100 ns to 12.7 μs variable delay with 100 ns step is achieved with 8-12 GHz bandwidth. To enhance the system performance bias angle of the modulator is optimized to 137 degrees. Noise figure, gain and spurious free dynamic range of the proposed structure are 8 dB, 19 dB and 110 dB respectively. The performance of the structure is superior to other structures reported in the literature.