High-quality photonic sampling streams from a semiconductor diode ring laser

    Authors

    C. M. DePriest; T. Yilmaz; A. Braun; J. Abeles;P. J. Delfyett

    Abbreviated Journal Title

    IEEE J. Quantum Electron.

    Keywords

    active modelocking; amplitude noise; optical analog-to-digital; conversion; phase noise; semiconductor optical amplifiers; timing jitter; TO-DIGITAL CONVERTER; MODE-LOCKED LASERS; TIMING JITTER; CONVERSION; GENERATION; SYSTEM; Engineering, Electrical & Electronic; Optics; Physics, Applied

    Abstract

    We report on the development of an ultralow-noise, external-cavity, actively mode-locked semiconductor diode laser for application in next-generation photonic sampling systems. A summary of harmonically mode-locked noise characteristics in a 65-MHz ring cavity is presented through the range of pulse repetition frequencies between 130 MHz and 8.3 GHz (2nd-128th harmonic). Important implications regarding the use of gain-versus-loss modulation as the active modelocking mechanisms are discussed. We also report what are, to our knowledge, the lowest noise characteristics achieved to date for a semiconductor diode laser operating at 10 GHz. Individually optimized results of 0.12% rms amplitude noise (10 Hz-10 MHz), and 43 fs rms residual phase jitter (10 Hz-10 MHz) provide a theoretical resolution of 8.6 bits in a 10-GSPS optical analog-to-digital converter. We have also achieved dispersion-compensated pulsewidths as short as 1.2 ps, and shown successful operation of a novel phase-locked-loop capable of reducing the rms; residual phase noise by as much as 91% within its response bandwidth. Finally, the first measurements of residual phase noise out to the Nyquist frequency (5 GHz) are presented, providing an upper bound on the rms residual phase jitter of 121 Is (10 Hz-5 GHz).

    Journal Title

    Ieee Journal of Quantum Electronics

    Volume

    38

    Issue/Number

    4

    Publication Date

    1-1-2002

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    380

    Last Page

    389

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000174630600009

    ISSN

    0018-9197

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