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Although microwave and light wave belong to the same electromagnetic wave, the huge difference in frequency makes them present completely different laws in generation, transmission, control, detection and interaction with matter. The research on how to use microwave and light wave as the carrier for information transmission and processing constitutes the main content of microwave technology and photon technology, which support the two basic technologies in today’s information society. Since the 1990s, these two technologies began to merge and produce a new interdisciplinary microwave photonics. It mainly studies how to use optoelectronic devices and methods to achieve microwave/millimeter wave signal generation, transmission, distribution, processing and other functions that are too complex or impossible to achieve only relying on the microwave system. In the future, a new challenge to microwave photonics is proposed: while achieving higher speed, bandwidth, processing power and dynamic range, devices and systems are required to have small size, light weight, low power consumption and stronger EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) resistance. This requirement leads to a new research direction, namely integrated microwave photonics, which aims to realize the chip integration of microwave photonic system, reduce the cost, size and power consumption of the system, increase the tunability, programmability, mechanical flexibility and electromagnetic resistance of the system, and realize the chip and product of microwave photonic system. This paper summarizes the development status of microwave photonic integration technology and silicon-based photonic devices, and points out that the silicon-based microwave photonic chip will become the key technology in the military and civil fields.
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