Overcoming Resolution and Bandwidth limIT in radio-frequency Signal digitisation (ORBITS)

模数转换器(ADC)是所有信号都是模拟的物理世界(例如，麦克风产生的电流或手机摄像头捕获的图像)与我们存储、传输和处理信号和信息的数字世界之间的重要纽带。ADC使(数字)计算机能够处理来自(模拟)物理世界的信号。这种能力彻底改变了我们的整个社会，使计算机(台式机、笔记本电脑或智能手机)无处不在。近年来，由于我们的社会对数据和信息的需求增加，以及虚拟和增强现实等新兴应用程序的出现，我们看到生成、存储、传输和处理的信息量急剧增加。所有这些信息都需要由ADC处理，只有在以更高的精度、负担得起的功耗、实时(低延迟)和越来越宽的带宽(更快)信号执行时，ADC才能满足上述需求。对于目前存在的技术来说，这是极具挑战性的，学术界和工业界都在积极追求这一点。这些方法中的大多数都是基于使用专用集成电路(ASIC)、光子时间延伸或时间交织等策略。不幸的是，所有这些方法似乎都面临着巨大的挑战。一条通向下一代ADC的明显可实现的路线，可以支持下一代ADC在未来十年及以后的信息增长，目前还缺乏。ORBITS的目标是使用光学辅助手段为ADC提供一种全新的、未来不会增长的解决方案。具体地说，它将利用最近出现的光学和光子学技术的独特功能，包括光学频率梳、相干光学处理和精确的光学相位控制。光学技术提供的带宽比目前用于模数转换器的微波电子学高三个数量级，并且具有超快(飞秒级别)响应的优势。光学频率梳技术与相干光学处理和相位控制相结合，能够在光域中实现高精度的信号分割，克服了传统方法中的定时抖动(时间不确定性)等基本限制，为大带宽高分辨率ADC开辟了一种可扩展和可集成的技术。为了实现实用(批量生产时的低成本、紧凑和低功耗)，轨道将研究光学和电子集成，允许通过协作和开放代工来利用不同的光电子集成平台的优点。除了下一代ADC，轨道公司还将研究在面向未来的大容量光纤和无线通信中的应用。它汇集了大学和公司顶尖研究小组的互补专业知识，旨在产生广泛的学术影响，并直接将知识转移到行业。

Analogue-to-digital converters (ADCs) are the essential links between physical world in which all signals are 'analogue' (e.g., electric current generated by a microphone or a picture captured by a mobile phone camera) and the digital world of '0s' and '1s', where we store, transmit and process signals and information. ADCs enable (digital) computers to process signals from the (analogue) physical world. This capability has revolutionised our entire society, making computers (desk-tops, lap-tops, or smartphones) ubiquitous. In recent years, we have witnessed a dramatic increase of the amount of information that is generated, stored, transmitted, and processed, driven by increased demand of our society on data and information and newly emerging applications such as virtual and augmented reality. All this information needs to be processed by ADCs, which can address the abovementioned need only when performing with better accuracy, affordable power consumption, in real-time (with low latency), and for increasingly broader bandwidth (faster) signals. This is extremely challenging with currently-existing technologies and is being vigorously pursued by both academia and industry. Most of these approaches are based on strategies like the use of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), photonic time stretch, or time interleaving. Unfortunately, all of these approaches seem to have formidable challenges. A clearly realisable route to next-generation ADCs that could support information growth in the next decade and beyond is currently lacking.ORBITS aims to provide a radically novel and future-growth-proof solution to ADCs using optical assisted means. Specifically, it will exploit unique features of recently-emerged optical and photonics technologies, including optical frequency combs, coherent optical processing, and precise optical phase control. Optics offers three orders of magnitude larger bandwidth than microwave electronics used for ADCs today and has the advantages of ultrafast (femtosecond level) responses. The optical frequency comb technologies, in conjunction with coherent optical processing and phase control, enables dividing signal with high accuracy in the optical domain, which overcomes the fundamental limits such as timing jitter (time uncertainty) in conventional approaches, opening up a scalable and integratable technology for large bandwidth high resolution ADCs.For practical (low-cost when volume-manufactured, compact, and low-power-consuming) implementation, ORBITS will investigate optical and electronic integration, which permit to harness merits across different photonics integration platforms, through collaborations and open foundries. Besides next-generation ADCs, ORBITS will study applications in future-proof high capacity optical and wireless communications. It assembles complementary expertise from top research groups in Universities and companies, aiming for a wide academic impact and a straightforward knowledge transfer to industry.