Novel Optical Analog-To-Digital Converter Based on Optical Time Division Multiplexing

A novel optical analog-to-digital converter based on optical time division multiplexing(OTDM) is described which uses electrooptic sampling and time-demultiplexing together with multiple electronic analog-to-digital converter(ADC). Compared with the previous scheme, the time-division multiplexer and the time-division demultiplexer are applied in the optical analog-to-digital converter(OADC) at the same time, the design of the OADC is simplified and the performance of the OADC based on time-division demultiplexer is improved. A core optical part of the system is demonstrated with a sample rate of 10 Gs/s. The signals in three channels are demultiplexed from the optical pulses.The result proves our scheme is feasible.