Power Dynamic Ranges in Intrinsic and Optically-Amplified Radio-Over-Fiber Links Using Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers

The advantages of microwave photonics have already been widely demonstrated, especially in the radio frequency communications, the so-called Radio-over-Fiber systems. In this paper, it is demonstrated that the required power budget in a Wireless Local Area Network over optical link can be provided by optical amplification using a Semiconductor Optical Amplifier. It is found that under a moderate and high link loss in a tested system, due to the transmission over a distance and optical splitting, of greater than approximately 10 dB, the use of optical amplifiers improves the dynamic range of the radio frequency power at the remote antenna by over 10 dB in an uplink transmission.