Study of an ultrafast analog-to-digital conversion scheme based on diffractive optics

A potentially ultrafast optical analog-to-digital (A/D) converter scheme is proposed and was partly studied experimentally. In the A/D converter schem e the input signal controls the wavelength of a diode laser, whose output b eam is incident on a grating. The beam from the grating hits a diffractive optical element in an array. The wavelength determines which element is ill uminated. Each element fans out a unique spot-pattern bit code to be read o ut in parallel by individual detectors. In the experiment all patterns but one from 64 array elements were read out correctly. (C) 2000 Optical Societ y of America. OCIS codes: 050.1970, 200.2610.