Integrated optical analog-to-digital converter

Abstract

An optically-sampled frequency-demultiplexed wideband analog-to-digital converter (ADC) which has potential to exceed the performance of electronic ADCs by orders of magnitude is studied analytically and numerically. The accuracy of the ADC as a function of its parameters is analyzed and impact of various imperfections of ADC components on its operation is evaluated. A universal error compensation algorithm for improving the conversion accuracy is proposed. On the way to implementation of the integrated optical ADC, two of its critical components - ring resonator filter bank and fiber-to-chip coupler -are designed. A novel coupler from a standard single mode fiber to a strongly confining silicon waveguide is proposed. The results of characterization of the filter bank and fiber-to-chip coupler fabricated on the silicon-on-insulator platform are presented and analyzed.