Title :
10-GHz ultralow-noise optical sampling stream from a semiconductor diode ring laser
Author :
DePriest, C.M. ; Braun, A. ; Abeles, J.H. ; Delfyett, P.J., Jr.
Author_Institution :
Sch. of Opt., CREOL, Orlando, FL, USA
Abstract :
We report, what is to our knowledge, the lowest-noise pulsetrain produced to date with an actively mode-locked external-cavity semiconductor diode laser. Operating characteristics at 10 GHz include dispersion-compensated pulsewidths as short as 1.2 ps, amplitude noise as low as 0.12% rms, and residual phase noise as low as 43-fs rms. Potential application of such a laser in a next-generation optical analog-to-digital converter would theoretically provide as much as 8.6 bits of resolution, while sampling a 5-GHz waveform at the Nyquist frequency.
Keywords :
Nyquist criterion; analogue-digital conversion; laser cavity resonators; laser mode locking; laser noise; ring lasers; semiconductor device noise; semiconductor optical amplifiers; 1.2 ps; 43 fs; GHz ultralow-noise optical sampling stream; Nyquist frequency; actively mode-locked external-cavity semiconductor diode laser; amplitude noise; dispersion-compensated pulsewidths; lowest-noise pulsetrain; next-generation optical analog-to-digital converter; residual phase noise; semiconductor diode ring laser; Laser mode locking; Laser noise; Laser theory; Noise level; Optical noise; Optical pulses; Phase noise; Sampling methods; Semiconductor diodes; Semiconductor lasers;
Journal_Title :
Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE
