Simultaneous microwave frequency conversion and idler filtering based on polarization manipulating of an amplified spontaneous emission source

•Simultaneous microwave frequency mixing and idler filtering without additional filter or hybrid coupler.•Switchable mixing functionality between fundamental and harmonic conversion.•Insensitive to environmental vibration owing to the polarization division multiplexed optical paths.•Dispersion-induced mixing power fading is avoid. We propose a technique to simultaneously realize microwave frequency conversion and idler filtering by polarization manipulating of an amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) source. By simply adjusting the tunable differential group delay (DGD) introduced by a polarization division multiplexed (PDM) emulator, switchable and idler-free frequency conversion can be implemented. Thanks to the intrinsic frequency selection of the dispersive delay structure, no electrical filter is involved to remove the mixing idlers, which ensures a broad operation bandwidth and flexible tunability. In addition, the dispersion-induced mixing power fading and the environmental vibration sensitivity that exist in previous approaches are both avoided owing to the PDM optical paths. The proposed method is theoretically and experimentally verified.