All optical up-converted signal generation with high dispersion tolerance using frequency quadrupling technique for radio over fiber system

•We present an all optical frequency up-conversion link with two low bandwidth MZMs.•The signal shows good dispersion tolerance performance over 45 km SMF transmission.•The link has the merits of cost-efficiency and operation efficiency.

A novel all optical up-converted signal generation scheme with optical single-sideband (OSSB) technique for radio over fiber (RoF) application is presented and experimentally demonstrated using low-bandwidth devices. The OSSB signal is generated by one low-bandwidth intensity LiNbO3 Mach-Zehnder modulator (LN-MZM) under frequency quadrupling modulation scheme and one low-bandwidth LN-MZM under double sideband carrier suppressed modulation (DSB-CS) scheme. The proposed all OSSB generation scheme is capable of high tolerance of fiber chromatic dispersion induced power fading (DIPF) effect. Benefiting from this novel OSSB generation scheme, a 26 GHz radio frequency (RF) signal up-conversion is realized successfully when one sideband of the optical LO signal is reused as the optical carrier for intermediate frequency (IF) signal modulation. The received vector signal transmission over long distance single-mode fiber (SMF) shows negligible DIPF effect with the error vector magnitude (EVM) of 15.7% rms. In addition, a spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) of the OSSB up-converting system is measured up to 81 dB Hz2/3. The experiment results indicate that the proposed system may find potential applications in future wireless communication networks, especially in microcellular personal communication system (MPCS).