Investigations of linearly chirped fiber Bragg gratings for time-steered array antennas

The use of linearly chirped fiber Bragg gratings as dispersive delay line e lements in optical true time-delay beamformers is investigated. Two differe nt dispersive prism beam-forming architectures ar considered as is their im pact on the grating specifications. Microwave double-sideband and single-si deband characterization is carried out on gratings suitable for both archit ectures with an emphasis on the group delay ripple of single and cascaded g ratings. Results indicate that commercially available gratings are suitable for beamforming applications.