Methods and systems using an optical receiver and electro-optic methods to transmit data from integrated computational elements

A method, comprising:

• providing a transmission light to an optical waveguide coupled to an optical link, wherein the transmission light comprises multiple transmission light pulses transmitted at a pre-determined time from an optical source;
• selecting the pre-determined time according to a travel distance of the transmission light pulses and a location of the optical link within a plurality of optical links disposed along the optical waveguide;
• receiving an optical computing signal from an optical computing device in the optical link, the optical computing signal being proportional to a characteristic of a sample detected by the optical computing device;
• modulating the transmission light in the optical link based on the optical computing signal and thereby obtaining modulated transmission light;
• determining a modulation value of the modulated transmission light;
• and
• determining a value for the characteristic of the sample based on the modulation value.