Experimental investigation on a software synchronous optical sampling technique based on periodically poled lithium niobate

A software synchronous optical sampling system is constructed based on sum frequency generation (SFG) in periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN). Five gigahertz of a non-return-to-zero (NRZ) data signal is sampled by sampling pulse with the repetition frequency of 29.31 MHz. The power of the SFG light is set at -23 dBm, and an eye diagram is successfully recovered. A band-pass filter is added before the sampling pulse is subjected to erbium-doped fiber amplifier to reduce gain competition and ensure a high power level of SFG.