130-GSa/s photonic analog-to-digital converter with time stretch preprocessor

In this letter, we demonstrate a photonic analog-to-digital converter with time stretch (TS) preprocessor that has a sampling rate of 130 GSa/s. The system has a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) exceeding seven effective number of bits over a 1-GHz bandwidth at 18 GHz. We present an analytical model of the SNR in the TS preprocessor which shows that over the specified bandwidth, the SNR is limited by the amplified spontaneous emission beat noise.