A novel transmitter implementation, which will be capable of operating in both classical and quantum light regimes since it will be able to send single photons across a quantum channel and at the same time to serve as analog RoF transmitter currently deployed in X-haul topologies, is proposed. By spectrally isolating the sidebands of analog RoF signal and by controlling the EML’s modulation index, different mean photon numbers launched in one sideband can be obtained. We report on the architecture of our proposed transmitter station, and we demonstrate its operation through proof-of-concept experiments by performing successful RoF transmission links and by carrying out photon-counting measurements. The transmission of 200 Mbaud QPSK-modulated signal with acceptable EVM measurements of < 17.5%, as well the variation of the mean count rate of the filtered sideband as a function of the peak-to-peak driving voltage of radio signal at 28GHz were successfully performed, confirming that the sidebands of A-RoF transceivers can be used as single-photon carriers for quantum information.
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