Measurement of optical to electrical and electrical to optical delays with ps-level uncertainty

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel measurement method achieving 2 ps uncertainty to accurately determine optical-electrical delay, enabling precise time transfer and calibration in fiber-optic systems.

Contribution

A new measurement principle and method for absolute delay determination with ps-level uncertainty, improving accuracy in optical-electrical delay measurements.

Findings

Achieved 2 ps measurement uncertainty.

Enabled precise calibration of optical transceivers.

Facilitated high-accuracy time transfer between optical and electrical domains.

Abstract

We present a new measurement principle to determine the absolute time delay of a waveform from an optical reference plane to an electrical reference plane and vice versa. We demonstrate a method based on this principle with 2 ps uncertainty. This method can be used to perform accurate time delay determinations of optical transceivers used in fibre-optic time-dissemination equipment. As a result the time scales in optical and electrical domain can be related to each other with the same uncertainty. We expect this method to break new grounds in high-accuracy time transfer and absolute calibration of time-transfer equipment.