Analysis of Analog Photonic Links Employing Multiple-Channel (Arrayed) Receivers

Analog optical links are finding increased application in commercial and military systems ranging from radio-over-fiber applications, antenna remoting, and optical signal processing. As the performance of an analog link improves with received photocurrent, optical amplifiers — predominantly erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) — have been readily incorporated into a variety of systems. It is known that the addition of an optical amplifier (EDFA) raises the electrical noise floor in both digital and analog applications due to the presence of amplified spontaneous emission (optical) noise. To mitigate this additional noise in systems employing EDFAs prior to modulation, dual-output optical modulators and balanced detection are frequently employed. This technique has been utilized alone to achieve the first multi-gigahertz bandwidth analog optical link with a noise figure