10 GHz ultralow jitter optical pulse stream generated by optoelectronic delay oscillators with soliton compression

We propose a new optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) architecture, able to generate at the same time ultra-low jitter optical pulses and ultra-low phase noise microwaves. This new system relies on the single-loop OEO, with two modulation branches: an intensity modulation for the formation of sinusoidal pre-pulses, and a phase modulation to chirp them. The train of chirped pre-pulses is then strongly amplified by an erbium-doped fiber amplifier and subsequently launched into a single-mode optical fiber. Owing to the combined effects of dispersion and self-phase modulation, the pre-pulses are optimally compressed with a compression factor which may be as high as 20, following a scenario referred to as time-lens soliton-assisted compression.