Fiber-optic microwave link employing optically amplified electrooptical upconverting receivers

An optically amplified Mach-Zender intensity modulator employed as upconverting receiver has been modeled and experimentally demonstrated for a 1.8-GHz fiber-optic link of 46.2-km standard single-mode fiber operating at 1.55 μm. This receiving scheme overcomes dispersion-induced distortion as well as eases the use of linearized external modulators and high-frequency RF sources for optical feeding microwave and millimeter-wave radiocommunication systems.