Chirp-Dispersion Interaction-enabled Uneven Optical PAM-4 based on Dual-drive MZM for 5.9-dB SNR Gain in Digital RoF Fronthaul with Quantizer Compatibility

We theoretically model and explain the dispersion-induced eye closure/open in dual-drive MZM-based system and leverage the effect for uneven optical PAM-4 digital radio-over-fiber fronthaul. We evaluated two quantizers and 5.9-dB SNR gain is experimentally achieved.