160 GSa/s all-optical pulsed sampling with a single semiconductor optical amplifier

Abstract

All-optical sampling attracts considerable attention due to its crucial applications in high-speed optical analog-to-digital conversion. We successfully demonstrated an all-optical sampling scheme using nonlinear polarization rotation in a single semiconductor optical amplifier at 40 GSa/s and 160 GSa/s, respectively. The scheme requires only a single semiconductor optical amplifier and has low power consumption, which shows much potential for the high-speed optical analog-to-digital conversion.