Optical coding scheme using optical interconnection for high sampling rate and high resolution photonic analog-to-digital conversion

We propose and demonstrate an optical coding scheme using optical interconnection for a photonic analog-to-digital conversion. It allows us to convert a multi-power level signal into a multiple-bit binary code so as to detect it in a bit-parallel format by binary photodiode array. The proposed optical coding is executed after optical quantization using self-frequency shift. Optical interconnection based on a binary conversion table generates a multiple-bit binary code by appropriate allocation of a level identification signal which is provided as a result of optical quantization. Experimental results show that 8-levels analog pulses are converted into 3-bit parallel binary codes.