Controlling Rayleigh-Backscattering-Induced Distortion in Radio over Fiber Systems for Radioastronomic Applications

Abstract: Radio over Fiber (RoF) Systems exploiting a direct modulation of the laser source are presently utilized within important Radioastronomic scenarios. Due to the particular operating conditions of some of these realizations, the phenomena which typically generate nonlinearities in RoF links for telecommunications applications can be here regarded as substantially harmless. However, these same operating conditions can make the RoF systems vulnerable to different kinds of nonlinear effects, related to the influence of the Rayleigh Backscattered signal on the transmitted one. A rigorous description of the phenomenon is performed, and an effective countermeasure to the problem is proposed and demonstrated, both theoretically and experimentally.