Linearized analog photonic down-conversion link based on a dual-polarization quadrature phase-shift keying modulator

A novel linearized analog photonic down-conversion link based on an integrated dual-polarization quadrature phase-shift keying (DP-QPSK) modulator is proposed and experimentally verified. Radio frequency and local oscillator signals are fed into the DP-QPSK modulator via an electrical attenuator, respectively. By adjusting the ratio of the two attenuators, the third-order intermodulation distortion can be eliminated based on balanced detection. The scheme is simple and compact and it achieves full spectrum utilization because of using no filter. Experimental results show that the spurious free dynamic range is improved by 16.43 dB for a two-tone signal and the error vector magnitude is improved by 6.16% for a 100-MSym/s 16-quadrature-amplitude-modulation signal.