Silicon Photonics for Microwave Applications: Programmable Filters and Beamformers

The past few decades have shown great advancements in wireless communication systems; however, today's explosive increase in data traffic demands even further improvement in such systems toward next-generation platforms. Current 4G mobile systems provide stationary users with data speeds up to 1 Gbit/s and high-mobility users with speeds up to 100 Mbit/s for mobile online access and multimedia applications such as TV streaming, video conferencing, navigation, high-end gaming, high-definition video streaming, and high-performance imaging [1].