US Patent 10139704 High-speed analog-to-digital converter

A high-speed analog-to-digital converter can produce a digital signal representative of an analog input electrical signal. An optical amplitude modulator can modulate an input optical pulse train using the analog input electrical signal. An optical splitter can split the modulated optical pulse train into a plurality of modulated optical pulse trains. Optical path delays can stagger in time the modulated optical pulse trains to form a plurality of time-staggered modulated optical pulse trains. Demodulators can detect and filter the time-staggered modulated optical pulse trains to form a respective plurality of time-averaged voltages. Analog-to-digital converters can output a respective plurality of digital time series representative of the respective time-averaged voltages. An interleaver can aggregate the plurality of digital time series to form the digital signal, which has a sample rate greater than a repetition rate of the input optical pulse train.