Simultaneous down-converting and linearizing wideband, multi-carrier analog photonic link based on digital post-processing

Wideband photonic links suffer not only from the traditional intermodulation distortions (IMD) but also from the cross modulation distortions (XMD) caused by the out-of-band signals, which severely limit the dynamic range of the links. In this paper, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel scheme to effectively suppress the cross modulation distortion in the wideband analog photonic link systems. Experiment results show that 26.5 dB suppression of the XMD is achieved while two RF carriers are simultaneously down-converted, preventing the degradation of dynamic range induced by the XMD distortion.