Optical sampling with coherent detection

摘要

An optical sampling arrangement for high-speed measurement of the time-varying electric field of a data-carrying optical input signal. The present invention includes optical sampling of the optical input signal, followed by coherent mixing with a reference laser source in an optical hybrid solution. The generated streams of mixed optical samples are then detected and signal processed in order to reconstruct a sampled version of the electric field of the data-carrying optical input signal.