Reduction of Dispersion Induced Distortions in Radio over Fibre links

The application of microwave / millimeter-wave optical links for future mobile broadband services is limited by the dispersion of the fibre. We present an approach to reduce the chromatic dispersion-induced distortions in optical links carrying combined baseband and microwave signals. This new method is based on the interplay of intensity dependent phase modulation in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) and fibre nonlinearities. Theoretical and experimental results are demonstrated for different long optical links. The results show that the frequency notches caused by the dispersion-induced carrier suppression effect may be sharply alleviated and the transmitted digital signal performance can be improved. Investigations on a 400 km long fibre link proved the previous statement.