Polarization-modulated analog photonic link with compensation of the dispersion-induced power fading.

A novel integrable modulator consisting of a polarization modulator and a polarizer is proposed for constructing a high-performance analog photonic link. By adjusting a polarization controller placed before the modulator, both amplitude modulation and phase modulation with adjustable ratio between them are implemented. This feature is used to shift the peak of the frequency response of a dispersive link to any desired frequency, so the dispersion-induced power fading around the frequency is compensated. A proof-of-concept experiment is performed. The compensation of the dispersion-induced power fading in the proposed analog photonic link increases the spur-free dynamic range as large as 12.5 dB.