Universality of mode-locked jitter performance

Author

Braun, A.M. ; Khalfin, V.B. ; Kwakernaak, M.H. ; Reichert, W.F. ; DiMarco, L.A. ; Shellenbarger, Z.A. ; DePriest, C.M. ; Yilmaz, T. ; Delfyett, P.J. ; Abeles, J.H.

Author_Institution

Sarnoff Corp., Princeton, NJ, USA

Volume

14

Issue

8

fYear

2002

Firstpage

1058

Lastpage

1060

Abstract

It is shown experimentally that the jitter of actively mode-locked laser pulses is determined by two factors: first, by spontaneous noise associated with cavity loss, and second, by round-trip propagation time. As the round-trip time is increased, a characteristic frequency which defines the high-frequency limit of phase noise decreases. For a comparable round-trip time and cavity loss, the jitter of mode-locked lasers based on diverse gain media, whether semiconductor or erbium ion is universal and independent of the upper-state transition lifetime.

Keywords

fibre lasers; jitter; laser cavity resonators; laser mode locking; laser noise; optical losses; phase noise; quantum well lasers; semiconductor device noise; spontaneous emission; actively mode-locked laser pulse jitter; cavity loss; characteristic frequency; diverse gain media; erbium doped fibre lasers; high-frequency limit; mode-locked jitter performance; mode-locked lasers; phase noise; round-trip propagation time; round-trip time; semiconductor lasers; spontaneous noise; upper-state transition lifetime; Frequency; Jitter; Laser mode locking; Laser noise; Laser transitions; Optical propagation; Optical pulses; Phase noise; Propagation losses; Semiconductor device noise;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2002.1021968

Filename

1021968