Reduced timing jitter of two-section 1.55-μm laser diodes under gain-/loss-switching regime at multigigahertz rates

Picosecond pulses at multigigahertz frequencies with low timing-jitter have been generated from two-section 1.55-μm semiconductor lasers. A pulse jitter of /spl sim/1 ps was measured at a 5-GHz repetition rate with the laser diodes operated in gain-switching regime. More than 2x lower values were obtained in the loss-switching regime. A timing jitter model has been adapted to treat two-section laser diodes in the two regimes. The superiority of the loss-switching regime is explained by faster laser dynamics around threshold. A good agreement is obtained between calculations and timing jitter measurements.