Photonic subsampling analog-to-digital conversion of microwave signals at 40-GHz with higher than 7-ENOB resolution

Conversion of analog signals into digital signals is one of the most important functionalities in modern signal processing systems. As the signal frequency increases beyond 10 GHz, the timing jitter from electronic clocks, currently limited at similar to 100 fs, compromises the achievable resolution of analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). Owing to their ultralow timing jitter, the use of optical pulse trains from passively mode-locked lasers has been considered to be a promising way for sampling electronic signals. In this paper, based on sub-10 fs jitter optical sampling pulse trains, we demonstrate a photonic subsampling ADC that downconverts and digitizes a narrowband microwave signal at 40 GHz carrier frequency with higher than 7 effective-number-of-bit (ENOB) resolution. (c) 2008 Optical Society of America