Photonic generation of tunable microwave signal using a passively Q-switched dual-wavelength fiber laser

ABSTRACT A novel photonic tunable microwave generation based on a dual‐wavelength Q‐switched Er‐doped fiber laser is proposed and experimental demonstrated. In the proposed configuration, two cascaded fiber Bragg gratings (FBG) are used as a cavity mirror, and a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror as another one. By changing the operation temperature of the FBG, stable dual‐wavelength Q‐switched pulses with tunable wavelength spacing are achieved, and wavelength spacing of 0.24–0.66 nm, corresponding to microwave signals of 30–82.5 GHz can be obtained. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 57:166–168, 2015