Signal-to-noise performance of two analog photonic links using different noise reduction techniques

We demonstrate to analog photonic links that use different noise reduction techniques to achieve high gain and low noise figure without electronic amplification. Both links use a high-power, low-noise master oscillator power amplifier as the optical source, a balanced-bridge dual-output LiNbO3 Mach-Zehnder modulator with a record low V-pi =1.33 V at 12 GHz, and either one or two high-power rear-illuminated photodetectors. In the first link, both outputs of the quadrature-biased modulator are used to illuminate two photodetectors configured for laser noise cancellation, yielding record high gain (> 17.0 dB) and low noise figure (< 6.9 dB) across the 6-12 GHz band. The second link uses low biasing to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio in one of the two modulator outputs, and thus requires only one photodetector. This link has lower gain (> 12.7 dB) but also record low noise figure (< 5.7 dB) across this same frequency band.