Short-Time Fourier Transform Based on Stimulated Brillouin Scattering

In this paper, all-optical short-time Fourier transform (STFT) based on stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is proposed and further used for real-time time-frequency analysis of different radio frequency (RF) signals. In the proposed all-optical STFT scheme, SBS not only provides a band-pass filter for implementing the window function in conjunction with a periodic frequency-sweep optical signal but also obtains the frequency domain information in different time windows through the generated waveform via frequency-to-time mapping (FTTM). A periodic frequency-sweep optical signal is generated and then modulated at a Mach–Zehnder modulator by the electrical signal under test (SUT). During different sweep periods, the fixed Brillouin gain functions as a bandpass filter to select a specific range of the spectrum, which is equivalent to applying a sliding window function to the corresponding section of the temporal signal with the help of the frequency-sweep optical signal. At the same time, after the optical signal is selectively amplified by the SBS gain and converted back to the electrical domain, SBS also implements the real-time FTTM, which can be utilized to obtain the frequency domain information corresponding to different time windows through the generated waveforms via the FTTM. The frequency domain information corresponding to different time windows is formed and spliced to analyze the time-frequency relationship of the SUT in real-time. We demonstrate the concept experimentally. STFTs of a variety of RF signals are carried out in a 12-GHz bandwidth limited only by the equipment, and the dynamic frequency resolution is better than 60 MHz.