Spurious-free dynamic range characteristics of the photonic up-converter based on a semiconductor optical amplifier

We investigate nonlinear intermodulation distortion characteristics of the photonic up-converter based on a semiconductor optical amplifier for multifrequency signal up-conversion. The third-order intermodulation distortions are measured with two-tone intermediate frequency signals for the photonic up-converter under various conditions. The spurious-free dynamic range is determined to be larger than 72 dB.Hz/sup 2/3/.