Broadband microwave time–frequency analysis via stabilized period-one oscillation and recirculating frequency shifting with shared fiber loop

To address the need for time-frequency analysis (TFA) of broadband microwave signals and to overcome the reliance of existing schemes on large-bandwidth swept microwave sources, we propose a broadband microwave signal TFA approach based on stabilized period-one (P1) oscillation and recirculating frequency shifting (RFS). By employing a feedback loop, a stable swept optical signal is generated from the stabilized P1 oscillation of a semiconductor laser, and its sweep bandwidth is further extended by an RFS loop to achieve multi-fold bandwidth expansion. For system compactness, the feedback loop and RFS loop share a common long fiber. The combined operation produces a broadband swept optical signal, which, through stimulated Brillouin scattering-based frequency-to-time mapping, enables TFA and frequency measurement of broadband microwave signals. Experimental results demonstrate an instantaneous analysis bandwidth of up to 57 GHz, a frequency resolution of 60 MHz, and a maximum mean absolute frequency measurement error of 38.16 MHz.