OPTICAL ANALOG/DIGITAL CONVERSION METHOD AND APPARATUS THEREOF

摘要

In order to realize a high speed optical analog/digital conversion process with a simple configuration, an optical-pulse branching delay multiplexer 40 generates as many duplicates of each optical pulse as the predetermined number of bits by branching each optical pulse string S11 obtained by sampling an input optical analog signal S in , and generates a temporally consecutive optical pulse string by multiplexing the duplicated optical pulses with a predetermined intensity difference and time difference. An optical encoder 60 and an optical-threshold processing unit 70 perform an encoding and a quantization of an optical pulse string S12, and output an optical digital signal S out corresponding to the optical analog signal S in .