Photonic Digital-to-Analog Converter Based on Summing of Serial Weighted Multiwavelength Pulses

A novel photonic digital-to-analog converter (PDAC) scheme based on summing of serial weighted multiwavelength pulses is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The weighted multiwavelength pulses are delayed and summed in time domain through dispersion, and each weighted pulse with specific wavelength corresponds to a bit of input digital data. Regardless of the resolution, this scheme only requires one electrooptic modulator (EOM). In the experiment, a 3-bit PDAC with a sample rate of 2.5 GS/s is realized, and the input digital signal is mapped to an analog output linearly by a transfer function. This simple and compact setup could reduce the system complexity and avoid the synchronization of multiple EOMs.