A highly sensitive optical sampling system has been produced by using sum-frequency generation in a periodically poled lithium niobate crystal. When the relations between crystal length and wavelength bandwidth and SFG conversion efficiency were investigated theoretically and experimentally, a system with a 1.4-mm-long periodically poled lithium niobate crystal was found to have a 22.5-nm wavelength bandwidth and a SFG conversion efficiency ten times that of a similar system with a 3-mm-long KTP crystal. The SNR of the system with the 1.4-mm-long PPLN crystal was about 7 dB higher than that of the system with a 3-mm-long KTP crystal, and a temporal resolution better than 1 ps was obtained by using compressed optical sampling pulses. The eye diagram of a 10-Gbit/s RZ optical signal with a 1-mW peak power could be observed, and the eye diagram of a 160-Gbit/s RZ optical signal could be observed clearly.