Performance Evaluation of Resolution-Enhanced ADC Using Optical Multiperiod Transfer Functions of NOLMs

We propose a resolution enhancement scheme using optical I/O multiperiod transfer functions of NOLMs for ultrafast low-resolution electrical A/D converters (ADCs). This scheme can provide an 8-bit ADC with the effective-number-of-bits of 7.86 bit by combining 8-period optical transfer functions and three 5-bit electrical ADCs. We investigate the performance of ADC about effective resolution, the nonlinear error and missing code due to the resolution of low-resolution ADCs and the number of output bits of the resolution-enhanced ADC.