Noise properties of microwave signals synthesized with femtosecond lasers

Author

Ivanov, Eugene N. ; McFerran, John J. ; Diddams, Scott A. ; Hollberg, Leo

Author_Institution

Sch. of Phys., Western Australia Univ., Crawley, WA

Volume

54

Issue

4

fYear

2007

fDate

4/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

736

Lastpage

745

Abstract

We discuss various aspects of high resolution measurements of phase fluctuations at microwave frequencies. This includes methods to achieve thermal noise limited sensitivity, along with the improved immunity to oscillator amplitude noise. A few prototype measurement systems were developed to measure phase fluctuations of microwave signals extracted from the optical pulse trains generated by femtosecond lasers. This enabled first reliable measurements of the excess phase noise associated with optical-to-microwave frequency division. The spectral density of the excess phase noise was found to be -140 dBc/Hz at 100 Hz offset from the 10 GHz carrier which was almost 40 dB better than that of a high quality microwave synthesizer

Keywords

fluctuations; high-speed optical techniques; microwave measurement; microwave photonics; noise measurement; phase noise; thermal noise; 10 GHz; 100 Hz; femtosecond lasers; high resolution measurements; microwave signals; noise properties; optical pulse trains; optical-to-microwave frequency division; oscillator amplitude noise immunity; phase fluctuations; phase noise; spectral density; thermal noise limited sensitivity; Fluctuations; Frequency measurement; Laser noise; Masers; Microwave measurements; Noise level; Optical noise; Phase measurement; Signal synthesis; Ultrafast optics;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0885-3010

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TUFFC.2007.307

Filename

4154634