On phaser-based processing of impulse radio UWB over fiber systems employing SOA

In this study, we adopt a phaser-based processing to enhance the performance of impulse radio over fiber system utilizing SOA. The amplifier has been placed at a distance in the optical link, so as to extend the coverage area of proposed transceiver. Operating in the linear or saturation region for SOA, adds ASE noise or strong nonlinearities acting on the propagated pulses, respectively. Both lead to a degradation in the power efficiency and bit error rate performance. By applying up and down analog chirping technique, we have reduced the ASE power and nonlinearity simultaneously. Based on the 5th Gaussian pulse and Abraha's combination of doublets, a significant improvement has been achieved at extremely low and high input powers entering the amplifier (<−15 dBm and 0 dBm), recording a very good bit error rate performance and power efficiency. Better signal quality was observed after photo-detector, due to the fact that waveforms with lower frequency components are less affected by SOA nonlinearity. Our scheme has proved to be effective for 1 Gbps OOK and 0.5 Gbps PPM transmissions, while reaching a distance of 160 km in the optical fiber.