Silicon Photonic Integrated Circuit Beamformer for RF Photonic Applications

In this paper, we demonstrate RF signal processing utilizing silicon photonic integrated circuits (PICs). We demonstrate the ability to perform beamspace processing or spatial Fourier Transforms in a silicon PIC. We include the silicon processing PIC in an RF imaging system based on an antenna array that upconverts RF signals to optical signals using lithium niobate modulators. We demonstrate simultaneous processing (beamforming) of multiple RF signals utilizing the silicon proccssing PIC.