TeraSlice aims at exploring and demonstrating a novel concept for high-speed real-time analogue-to-digital conversion of ultra-broadband waveforms that can overcome the limitations of state of the art electronic and photonic ADC.
Key scientific and technological objectives of the proposal comprises the following aspects, each of which represents a truly disruptive scientific achievement in the respective area of science:
- Proof-of-concept of the first demonstration of photonic analogue-to-digital conversion covering an analogue bandwidth of at least 320 GHz at an equivalent sampling rate of at least 640 GSa/s.
- First-time demonstration and exploration of ultra-fast electro-optic modulators that combine unprecedented modulation bandwidths in excess of 320 GHz with low modulation voltages using organic electro-optic materials.
- First-time demonstration photonic analogue-to-digital conversion based on soliton microcombs.
- Unprecedentedly compact (< 1 cm³) ultra-low-power soliton microcomb sources, based on SiN chips injection locked to a pump diode, featuring threshold pump powers down to 10 mW at line spacings of 50 … 150 GHz.
Technological concept of the chip-scale ultra-broadband photonic analogue-to-digital converter (ADC), offering scalability to THz bandwidths by massive spectral parallelization in the optical domain.
