  An experimental comparison of the conversion gain and harmonic distortion
performance between Switching and Modulation architectures of an all-optical
photonic sampler mixer up-converter using a Semiconductor Optical
Amplifier-based Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (SOA-MZI) is presented. The process
of frequency up-conversion from 1 GHz to 9 GHz is evaluated. Because of their
different principle of operation, the Switching architecture demonstrates
higher positive conversion gain by approximately 6 dB and 8 dB for standard and
differential configuration, respectively, while the Modulation architecture
achieves lower harmonic distortion up to 8 dB, depending on the modulation
index of the 1 GHz signal.
