Technology for measuring a ultra-short optical phenomenon developed

Technology for measuring a ultra-short optical phenomenon developed

Can be measured simply by connecting one optical fiber

Apr 22, 2015

In collaboration with a Hong Kong-based company, Amonics, a group of researchers led by KONISHI Tsuyoshi (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University) developed a portable measurement device capable of measuring the shape of an ultra-short (femtosecond) optical pulse. It is virtually maintenance-free and fool-proof in operation. This technology will drastically enhance fine processing technology and microscope performance. For example, it will increase the performance of solar energy wafers and make it easy to observe and discover new life phenomenon.

Abstract :

We experimentally realize seamless operations with below 100-fs timing jitter in a 10-GSample/s 3-bit photonic analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with an input 2.5-GHz si-nusoidal electrical signal. To address the energy efficiency, it is necessary to explore some serial approaches to get most operations in a photonic ADC done before serial-to-parallel conversion to save the number of devices. To press forward with the work on subsequent operations after optical sampling in a photonic ADC, we have investigated optical quantization and coding and demonstrated their performances. The experimental results successfully demonstrated seamless operations in a photonic ADC, i.e., sampling, quantization, and coding, while keeping its parallel-configuration-free characteristics and low timing jitter below 100 fs. This demonstration could address the energy efficiency by reduction of the number of devices, including electrical ADCs for subsequent operations after optical sampling in existing high-performance photonic ADCs.

Figure 1. AOWA (Amonics Optical Waveform Analyzer)

To learn more about this research, please view the full research report entitled " Below 100-fs Timing Jitter Seamless Operations in 10-GSample/s 3-bit Photonic Analog-to-Digital Conversion " at this page of the IEEE Photonics Journal website .

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