Experimental reduction of dispersion-induced effects in microwave optical links employing SOA boosters

A novel approach to reduce the dispersion-induced effects in microwave optical links based on the interplay of intensity dependent phase modulation in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) and fiber chromatic dispersion has been proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The results show that the dispersion-induced radio-frequency carrier suppression ratio may be alleviated by more than 20 dB when the SOA is operated under saturation. Moreover, we have noticed that the SOA input power must be carefully controlled in order to avoid significant nonlinear distortion.