With the trend to increasingly faster processes, there is a need for ubiquitous Digital-to-Analog Converters (DACs) to keep pace. Current state of the art electronic DAC devices are thermal-noise-limited resulting in decreasing signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) as speeds increase.
This invention exploits the non-linearities of optical Mach-Zehnder (MZ) electrooptic modulators to enhance small signal dynamic range at higher bandwidths. A linear photodiode (PD) converts the amplified optical signal output from the MZ back to an electrical signal completing an Electrical-Optical-Electrical (EOE) conversion cycle. The dynamic range can be further enhanced by daisy chaining several MZ-PD EOE stages together and feeding the output from one stage into the input of the next stage.
Current stage of technology development: TRL 2-3
LLNL has patent(s) on this invention.
U.S. Patent No. 11868025 Temporal Resolution and Fidelity Enhancement of Arbitrary Waveforms published 1/9/2024
- Enhances dynamic range of high bandwidth electrical signals in regimes where state of the art electronic DACs fail.
- Uses standard telecom photonics components in a scalable process.
- Ultrafast signal test and measurement instrumentation, especially for operations in the 10 – 100 GHz regime and beyond.
