Sinusoidal drives for optical time demultiplexers

Electrically driven arrays of optical switches can be used to time demultip lex a train of high-repetition-rate optical pulses into parallel lower spee d circuits. These demultiplexers are used to advantage in high-speed commun ication systems and in photonic analog-to-digital converters. High-speed op eration of an optical demultiplexer is simplified, by the use of sinusoidal electrical drives, but suppression of crosstalk is difficult. Adequate sup pression of crosstalk in these demultiplexers can be obtained through the u se additional modulators. The key to our approach is the use of a combinati on of harmonically related sinusoidal signals applied to the additional mod ulators in order to select one out of every M pulses. Results with a 1:4 de multiplexed photonic analog-to-digital converter operating at 208 MS/s demo nstrate the efficacy of the technique.