Optical pulse generation at high pulse rates for electro-optical analog to digital converters

This work investigated optical pulse generation at high pulse rates for electro optical analog to digital converters using mathematical and electrical simulations followed by experimental designs. Short optical pulses have a wide variety of applications in the field of optical communications and optical signal processing. Generation of ultrashort optical pulses at 1550nm wavelength using semiconductor lasers is currently of great interest. Hence, the microwave EO-ADC system developed at University of Missouri-Columbia requires that an optical probe pulse be velocity phase matched with the microwave signal be digitized. The optical pulse width determines the sampling time and the optical pulse repetition rate determines the sampling rate of the EO-ADC system. This work focuses on the design of such a pulse generation source which is also a subsystem of the entire EO-ADC system being developed.