Analog Photonic Link with Tunable Optical Carrier to Sideband Ratio and Balanced Detection

Optical carrier to sideband ratio (CSR) optimization and balanced detection are two effective techniques to improve the performance of an analogy photonic link (APL). Here, we proposed an APL where tunable optical CSR and balanced detection can both be implemented. A single integrated polarization division multiplexing Mach-Zehnder modulator (PDM-MZM) is used to generate a polarization multiplexed signal containing an optical carrier and two radio frequency modulated sidebands, and the optical CSR can be tuned from -15 to 15 dB by simply adjusting the direct current bias of the modulator. By optimizing the optical CSR in the proposed link, the link gain and noise figure (NF) are improved by 12 and 6.8 dB compared with conventional quadrature biased link. In addition, after balanced detection in the proposed link, the link gain, NF, third-order spurious free dynamic range (SFDR), and especially the second-order SFDR are further improved.