Comparison of the Jitter Performance of different Photonic Sampling Techniques

The jitter performance of different photonic sampling techniques are investigated. Two basic sampling mechanisms are identified. Depending on analog-to-digital converter (ADC) architectures, the sampling instant is defined either by a time instant at the rising edge of the detected pulses or by their center of mass. A generalized noise model is introduced and used for performance analysis. It is shown that using the center of mass of optical pulses for the sampling process is about one order of magnitude more precise in time than using a time instant at the rising edge. But the incThe jitter performance of different photonic sampling techniques are investigated. Two basic sampling mechanisms are identified. Depending on analog-to-digital converter (ADC) architectures, the sampling instant is defined either by a time instant at the rising edge of the detected pulses or by their center of mass. A generalized noise model is introduced and used for performance analysis. It is shown that using the center of mass of optical pulses for the sampling process is about one order of magnitude more precise in time than using a time instant at the rising edge. But the increased timing precision of down to few fs is accompanied by a higher amplitude uncertainty decreasing the photonic ADC resolution to ≈ 9 effective number of bits.reased timing precision of down to few fs is accompanied by a higher amplitude uncertainty decreasing the photonic ADC resolution to ≈ 9 effective number of bits.