Heterodyne detection with mismatch correction based on array detector.

Based on an array detector, a new heterodyne detection system, which can correct the mismatches of amplitude and phase between signal and local oscillation (LO) beams, is presented in this paper. In the light of the fact that, for a heterodyne signal, there is a certain phase difference between the adjacent two samples of analog-to-digital converter (ADC), we propose to correct the spatial phase mismatch by use of the time-domain phase difference. The corrections can be realized by shifting the output sequences acquired from the detector elements in the array, and the steps of the shifting depend on the quantity of spatial phase mismatch. Numerical calculations of heterodyne efficiency are conducted to confirm the excellent performance of our system. Being different from previous works, our system needs not extra optical devices, so it provides probably an effective means to ease the problem resulted from the mismatches.