Highly linear coherent receiver with feedback

We propose and demonstrate a novel coherent receiver with feedback for high-linearity analog photonic links. In the proposed feedback receiver, a local phase modulator tracks the phase change of the signal and reduces the effective swing across the phase demodulator without reducing the transmitted signal. The signal-to-noise-ratio is thus maintained while linearity is improved. Up to 20-dB improvement in spur-free dynamic range (SFDR) is achieved experimentally. At 3.13 mA of average photocurrent per photodiode, the measured SFDR is 124.3 dB�Hz�/3, which corresponds to an SFDR of 131.5 dB�Hz�/3 when the link is shot-noise-limited