Data rate measurement method with selectable range in linear optical sampling

Linear optical sampling (LOS) is one of the most powerful techniques for high-speed signal monitoring. To measure the data-rate of signal under test (SUT) in optical sampling, multi-frequency sampling (MFS) was proposed. However, the measurable data-rate range of the existing method based on MFS is limited, which makes it very difficult to measure the data-rate of high-speed signals. To solve the above problem, a range selectable data-rate measurement method based on MFS in LOS is proposed in this paper. Through this method, the measurable data-rate range can be selected to match the data-rate range of SUT and the data-rate of SUT can be measured precisely, independently of the modulation format. What’s more, the sampling order can be judged using the discriminant in the proposed method, which is key for plotting eye diagrams with correct time information. We experimentally measure the baud-rates of PDM-QPSK signal from 800 MBaud to 40.8 GBaud in different ranges and judge the sampling orders. The relative error of measured baud-rate is less than 0.17% while the error vector magnitude (EVM) is less than 0.38. Compared with the existing method, under the same sampling cost, our proposed method realizes the selectivity of the measurable data-rate range and the judgment of sampling order, greatly extends the measurable data-rate range of SUT. Hence, the data-rate measurement method with selectable range has great potential for high-speed signal data-rate monitoring.