Reactive antenna matching when using integrated optical modulators

The use of externally modulated fiber optic links for antenna remoting provides new opportunities for high performance, but requires no electrical power at the remote end. For those applications where wide instantaneous bandwidth is not essential, reactive matching can provide a very low link noise figure. At lower frequencies (typically <50O MHz), using reactive tuning elements in conjunction with a transformer can theoretically yield a noise figure below the 3 dB limit for passive systems. The externally modulated system in this case is not a truly passive system but can be thought of as an optically-driven RF amplifier.<
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