An opto-electronic A/D converter includes a tunable laser for wavelength
modulating a narrowband coherent electromagnetic beam by the amplitude of
the analog signal. A grating transforms the wavelength modulated beam into
a corresponding angularly modulated beam. A set of kinoforms diffract the
angularly modulated beam into a bundle of diffracted beams. Detectors
determine the digital signal by repeatedly sampling the spatial power
distribution of the diffracted beams.
