Photonic time-stretch analog-to-digital converter employing envelope removing technique

The previously proposed differential time-stretch preprocessor can eliminate the distortions induced by the non-uniformity of optical pulse and the pulse-to-pulse variations of the optical source. However, the time-delay element in this method reduces the processing speed of the system. In this paper, we propose an envelope removing technique to mitigate these distortions and improve the time efficiency of time-stretch system simultaneously. To verify the feasibility of this technique, a comprehensive mathematical model for this technique is developed and numerical simulation is also presented. Simulation results show that this method can effectively eliminate non-uniformity and pulse-to-pulse variations in time-stretch system. This method has two times faster processing speed than the differential time-stretch preprocessor.