Performance study of microwave photonic links by considering the effect of phase shifters and bias conditions on dual-drive dual parallel Mach–Zehnder modulator

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents the performance analysis of different schemes for generating linearized photonic signal by varying phase shifter arrangements of a dual-drive dual parallel Mach–Zehnder modulator (DD-DPMZM). The RF signals at the electrodes of sub-modulators of DD-DPMZM are fed using different phase angles to generate optically modulated signals in the output. The proposed system consists of a DD-DPMZM and phase shifters. Spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) is evaluated for different configurations of sub modulators in upper and lower arm of DD-DPMZM. SFDR of 135.6 dB Hz4/5 is obtained for quadrature and optical carrier suppression modulation in upper and lower submodulators by suppressing third order intermodulation distortion completely. It is found to be high performance configuration for dual parallel Mach–Zehnder modulator based linear microwave photonic link.