Photonic Analog to Digital Conversion

Photonic-based A/D conversion has received and continues to receive considerable attention as an alternative approach to providing enhanced resolution and speed in high-performance applications. Some of the potential advantages of using pho- tonic technologies are high-speed clocking, broadband sam- pling, reduced mutual interference of signals, and compati- bility with existing photonic-based systems. This book pro- vides a comprehensive look at the application of photonic devices and architectures to the problem of A/D conversion. It includes a complete description of A/D converter performance characteristics, the various approaches to A/D conversion, and an introduction to several photonic devices used in photonic A/D converters, and it includes a detailed treatment of the application of both temporal and spatial oversampling techniques to photonic A/D conversion. It shows progress made, discusses current research, and provides a glimpse of several promising future architecutres and technologies.