Toward a 100-Gsample/s photonic A-D converter

We propose a 100-Gsample-per-second (GSPS) real time photonic analog-to-digital converter architecture and demonstrate the 100-GSPS photonic sampling and 1:8 time-division optical demultiplexing required to implement such a converter. The high-speed demultiplexing is achieved with a lithium niobate intensity modulator-based serial-parallel converter. Experimental results are presented indicating the potential for >4-bit performance in a fully implemented analog-to-digital conversion system.