Integrated Ring Modulator Based High-Speed Optical Sampler for Wireless Signals

We present a compact and energy-efficient high-speed optical sampler for wideband wireless signal reception. It relies on an integrated ring modulator (RM) to construct a photonics-assisted analog-to-digital convertor (PADC). The proposed scheme has the potential to overcome the bandwidth and resolution limitations of classic sample-and-hold based electronic ADC (EADC). The wireless signal is first converted to the optical domain and then sampled with the RM. Orthogonal sinc-pulse sequences, which are simultaneously generated in the same RM by a sinusoidal from a radio frequency oscillator, are used for optical sampling. The sampler down-converts the wireless signal with a bandwidth B into N sub-signals with a bandwidth of B/N. The sub-signals can then be processed with electronics with a bandwidth of B/(2N). This opens the door for wireless terabit transceivers.