Locking bandwidth of actively mode-locked semiconductor lasers

Author

Ahmed, Zaheer ; Zhai, Lu ; Lowery, Arthur J. ; Onodera, Noriaki ; Tucker, Rodney S.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Electron. Eng., Melbourne Univ., Parkville, Vic., Australia

Volume

29

Issue

6

fYear

1993

fDate

6/1/1993 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1714

Lastpage

1721

Abstract

The locking bandwidth of an actively mode-locked semiconductor laser is a measure of its tolerance to variations in the input drive frequency. At frequencies outside the locking bandwidth, the output pulses from the laser exhibit large amplitude fluctuations and timing jitter. The authors investigate the locking bandwidths of fundamentally driven and harmonically driven high-repetition-rate actively mode-locked semiconductor lasers. They show that the locking bandwidth is maximized when the cavity length is minimized. The locking bandwidth is related to an important constant, the pull-in time. Experimental data and numerical modeling show that the pull-in time is a function of the optical bandwidth of the system and the RF drive level

Keywords

laser mode locking; semiconductor lasers; amplitude fluctuations; cavity length; fundamentally driven semiconductor lasers; harmonically driven high-repetition-rate actively mode-locked semiconductor lasers; input drive frequency; locking bandwidth; numerical modeling; optical bandwidth; output pulses; pull-in time; radio frequency drive level; timing jitter; Bandwidth; Frequency measurement; Injection-locked oscillators; Laser mode locking; Optical pulses; Radio frequency; Resonance; Semiconductor lasers; Space vector pulse width modulation; Timing jitter;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/3.234426

Filename

234426