Measurement of SFDR and noise in EDF amplified analog RF links using all-optical down-conversion and balanced receivers

摘要

Optical down-conversion techniques have become an increasingly popular architecture to realize Multi-band Enterprise Terminals (MET), Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), Optical Arbitrary Waveform Generation (OAWG), RF Channelizers and other technologies that need rapid frequency agile tunability in the microwave and millimeter RF bands. We describe recent SFDR, NF, Gain, and Noise modeling and measurements of Erbium-doped-fiber amplified analog RF optical links implementing all-optical down-conversion and balanced photodiode receivers. We describe measurements made on our newly designed extensive test-bed utilizing a wide array of high powered single and balanced photodiodes, polarization preserving output LN modulators, EAMs, LIMs, tunable lasers, EDFAs, RF Amplifiers, and other components to fully characterize direct and coherent detection techniques. Additionally, we compare these experimental results to our comprehensive MATLAB system modeling and optimization software tools.