Wavelength reuse in a bidirectional radio-over-fiber link based on cross-gain and cross-polarization modulation in a semiconductor optical amplifier.

Wavelength reuse in a bidirectional radio-over-fiber link is proposed and demonstrated based on the cross-gain modulation (XGM) and the cross-polarization modulation in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). With a polarization beam splitter placed at the remote antenna unit, the polarization-modulated signal generated at the SOA is converted into noninverted and inverted intensity-modulated signals. The noninverted signal is used to cancel the inverted XGM-induced intensity-modulated signal to form a clean optical carrier for wavelength reuse in upstream signal transmission, while the inverted intensity-modulated signal is combined constructively to enhance the XGM-induced signal, providing robust downlink service. A bidirectional transmission of 5 GHz RF signal carrying a 50 MBaud 16 quadrature amplitude modulation baseband signal is experimentally implemented. The error vector magnitude degradation due to the fiber transmission for both the downlink and uplink signal is about 0.2%.