US Patent 8446305 Photonic analog to digital conversion

A photonic analog to digital converter includes one or more modulators configured to receive a first optical signal and a radio frequency signal. The one or more modulators is configured to modulate the first optical signal based on the radio frequency signal. The converter also includes circuitry configured to independently quantize one or more of phase, quadrature, and amplitude coordinates of the modulated signal. The circuitry provides the quantized coordinates to one or more electronic analog to digital converters.