title: Study of an ultrafast analog-to-digital conversion scheme based on diffractive optics.
abstract: A potentially ultrafast optical analog-to-digital (A/D) converter scheme is proposed and was partly studied experimentally. In the A/D converter scheme the input signal controls the wavelength of a diode laser, whose output beam is incident on a grating. The beam from the grating hits a diffractive optical element in an array. The wavelength determines which element is illuminated. Each element fans out a unique spot-pattern bit code to be read out in parallel by individual detectors. In the experiment all patterns but one from 64 array elements were read out correctly.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microelectronics ED!, Photonics Laboratory, Chalmers University of Technology, S-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Johansson
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Löfving
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hård
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Thylén
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mokhtari
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Westergren
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pala