Time interleaved optical sampling for ultra-high speed A/D conversion

A scheme is proposed for increasing the sampling rate of analogue-to-digital conversion by more than an order of magnitude by combining state-of-the-art A/D converters with photonic technology. Ultra-high speed sampling is performed optically by a multiwavelength pulse train. Wavelength demultiplexers convert the high repetition rate data stream of samples into parallel data streams that can be handled by available electronic A/D converters.