title: A photonic analog-to-digital converter based on an unbalanced Mach-Zehnder quantizer.
abstract: A Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) based analog to digital converter (ADC) is described. The signal to be digitized is applied to a single electrode of a high speed unbalanced modulator that acts as a quantizer. The rest of the system consists of commercially available wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) components. Analysis indicates that 6 bit operation at 40 Giga Samples per second (GS/s) is possible with moderate optical carrier power.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
authors.forename: Chris H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Sarantos
authors.forename: Nadir
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Dagli