Integrated Optical Components in Silicon for High Speed Analog-to- Digital Conversion

Advances in femtosecond lasers and laser stabilization have led to the development of sources of ultrafast optical pulse trains that show jitter on the level of a few femtoseconds over tens of milliseconds and over seconds if referenced to atomic frequency standards. These low jitter sources can be used to perform opto-electronic analog to digital conversion that overcomes the bottleneck set by electronic jitter when using purely electronic sampling circuits and techniques. Electronic Photonic Integrated Circuits (EPICs) may enable in the near future to integrate such an opto-electronic analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) completely. This presentation will give an overview of integrated optical devices such as low jitter lasers, electro-optical modulators, Si-based filter banks, and high-speed Si-photodetectors that are compatible with standard CMOS processing and which are necessary for the implementation of EPIC-chips for advanced opto-electronic ADCs.