Patent ID: 8155913

Claim:
A system for characterizing an oscillator, comprising: an input port that receives an electrical oscillation signal from an oscillator under test; an input port signal splitter that splits the received electrical oscillation signal into a first electrical oscillation signal and a second electrical oscillation signal; a first photonic signal processing branch circuit that coverts the first electrical oscillation signal into a first optical signal carrying the first electrical oscillation signal and processes the first optical signal to produce a first electrical branch output signal; a second photonic signal processing branch circuit that coverts the second electrical oscillation signal into a second optical signal carrying the second electrical oscillation signal and processes the second optical signal to produce a second electrical branch output signal; a dual channel signal analyzer that receives the first and second electrical branch output signals to measure noise in the received electrical oscillation signal; and a computer controller that controls the first and second photonic signal processing branch circuits and the dual channel signal analyzer to control measurements of the noise in the received electrical oscillation signal.