Performance of analog optical links employing fiber Raman amplifiers

We present the characterization of an analog optical link employing external modulation and optical carrier in the C-band using a fiber Raman amplifier (FRA). The figures of merit gain and noise figure were characterized from 1 to 9 GHz, whereas the spurious-free dynamic range was measured and compared for both setups for frequencies from 2 to 9 GHz, all with and without the Raman amplifier. Experimental results demonstrate that FRA can simultaneously increase the spurious-free dynamic range, the analog gain and decrease the analog noise figure when compared to the same configuration without optical amplifier.