Fig. 1. Schematic illustration of the proposed photonic time-stretched ADC based on third-order predistortion (SC, super-continuum).

Fig. 2. Experimental setup of the proposed photonic time-stretched ADC based third-order predistortion (OSC, oscillator; SA, spectrum analyzer).

Fig. 3. (a) Electronic output spectrum for the conventional scheme without predistortion by using a common MZM. (b) Electronic output spectrum for the highly linearized scheme based on third-order predistortion by using DPMZM.

Fig. 4. Simulation and experimental results show the C/IM as a function of the modulation index m.

Fig. 5. Power of the stretched signal as a function of electronic input power for our proposed scheme and conventional scheme without predistortion. (a) Squares and lines represent the experimental data and linear fits to the fundamental and limiting IMD3 of common MZM scheme. (b) Circles and lines represent the experimental and linear fits to the fundamental and limiting IMD3 of the proposed DPMZM scheme.