Phase-frequency jointly quantizing method for cost-effective all-optical analog-to-digital conversion

Abstract

We propose for the first time a two-dimensional phase-frequency jointly quantizing method for cost-effective all-optical analog-to-digital conversion (ADC), both on power consumption and structure complexity. By fully harnessing the power-dependent phase and frequency shift of the probe and pump light, respectively, that simultaneously occurs during the cross-phase modulation process, the method is studied with an on-chip interferometer structure based on nonlinear silicon-organic hybrid slot waveguide. Simulation results show the 4-bit quantization resolution is achieved by using only one interferometer, where N interferometers should be used in the conventional methods with resolution of N-bit. The proposed method provides an efficient optical quantization technique for all-optical ADC, also opens a new mind for exploring advanced all-optical ADC techniques using multi-dimensional degrees of freedom of light.