Dynamic range improvement of electroabsorption modulator by optical amplification

Abstract

A semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) that has an inverse‐shaped transfer function to that of an electroabsorption modulator (EAM) is used to reduce the nonlinearity of the EAM. An SOA operates in the gain saturation region, and the increased gain of the SOA is preferred for an improved dynamic range. A 9 dB enhancement of the SFDR is theoretically obtained. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 25: 334–338, 2000.