Reconfigurable photonic delay line filter

1 . A filter apparatus comprising:

an electrical input signal;

an optical source;

an optical modulator coupled to the electrical input signal and to the optical source;

a first plurality of photonic delay lines coupled to the optical modulator;

an optical switch coupled to the first plurality of photonic delay lines;

a second plurality of photonic delay lines coupled to the optical switch;

a combiner to combine the outputs of the second plurality of photonic delay lines to provide a combined output;

a photodetector coupled to the combined output of the combiner, wherein the photodetector produces a first filtered output of the electrical input signal.

2 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the optical source contains more than one wavelength.

3 . The apparatus of claim 2 , further comprising a wavelength demultiplexer residing between the optical modulator and the first plurality of photonic delay lines.

4 . The apparatus of claim 2 , further comprising a wavelength multiplexer residing between the second plurality of photonic delay lines and the photodetector.

5 . The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising optical connections from an output of the optical switch to an input of the optical switch.

6 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein outputs from second plurality of photonic delay lines are combined in free-space at the photodetector.

7 . The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a plurality of photodetectors coupled to the second plurality of photonic delay lines.

8 . The apparatus of claim 7 , further comprising an electrical combiner coupled to the plurality of photodetectors.

9 . The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the electrical combiner is integrated with electrical amplifiers on a semiconductor substrate.

10 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the filter apparatus produces multiple bandpass filter pass bands, further comprising a mechanism to select one or more of the multiple distinct bandpass filter pass bands and suppress one or more of the multiple distinct bandpass filter pass bands.

11 . The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein the mechanism to select one or more of the multiple distinct bandpass filter passbands comprises a frequency conversion stage that changes the frequency of the electrical input signal, and a fixed bandpass filter producing a second filtered output of the electrical signal.

12 . The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein the mechanism to select one or more of the multiple distinct bandpass filter passbands comprises an analog to digital converter.

13 . The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein the mechanism to select one or more of the multiple distinct bandpass filter passbands comprises a pulsed optical source that alters the frequency of the electrical input signal by nonlinear mixing in the photodetector.

14 . The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein the mechanism to select one or more of the multiple distinct bandpass filter passbands comprises a tunable electrical bandpass filter.

15 . A filter apparatus comprising:

an input electrical signal;

an optical modulator coupled to the input signal and to an optical source containing more than one wavelength;

a first plurality of photonic delay lines coupled to the optical modulator;

an optical switch coupled to the first plurality of photonic delay lines;

a second plurality of photonic delay lines coupled to the optical switch;

means for combining outputs of the second plurality of photonic delay lines;

a photodetector coupled to a combined output of the second plurality of photonic delay lines, wherein the photodetector produces a first filtered output of the electrical input signal, the filtered output containing more than one distinct pass band, each distinct pass band having a different center frequency.

16 . A method of filtering an input electrical signal, comprising:

modulating an optical signal with input electrical signal;

splitting the optical signal into multiple input signals;

delaying the multiple input signals;

switching the optical input signals to optical output signals;

adjusting the amplitudes of the optical output signal;

delaying the optical output signals;

summing the optical output signals; and

detecting the optical output signals to produce an output optical signal that is a filtered version of the input electrical signal.

17 . The method of claim 16 , wherein summing and detecting the optical signals comprises summing the optical signals followed by detecting the optical signals, or detecting the optical signals followed by summing the optical signals.

18 . The method of claim 16 , wherein summing and detecting the optical signals comprises summing multiple sets of optical signals, detecting multiple sets of summed optical signals, then summing the multiple sets of detected, summed optical signals.

19 . The method of claim 16 , wherein modulating the optical signal with the input electrical signal comprises:

generating multiple optical wavelengths;

combining the multiple optical wavelengths into a smaller number of optical wavelengths;

modulating the intensity of the combined multiple optical wavelengths;

separating the different optical wavelengths; and

providing different optical delay for different wavelengths.

20 . The method of claim 16 , wherein the filtered output produced by summing and detecting the optical output signals from the switch contains more than one distinct pass band, each distinct pass band having a different center frequency.

21 . The method of claim 16 , further comprising an electrical filter following the summed and detected optical signals, the electrical filter reducing the number of distinct filter pass bands.