title: Attosecond timing jitter pulse trains from semiconductor saturable absorber mode-locked Cr:LiSAF lasers.
abstract: The timing jitter of optical pulse trains from diode-pumped, semiconductor saturable absorber mode-locked femtosecond Cr:LiSAF lasers is characterized by a single-crystal balanced optical cross-correlator with an equivalent sensitivity in phase noise of -235 dBc/Hz. The RMS timing jitter is 30 attoseconds integrated from 10 kHz to 50 MHz, the Nyquist frequency of the 100 MHz repetition rate oscillator. The AM-to-PM conversion induced excess phase noise is calculated and compared with experiment. The self-steepening effect is proven to be the dominant AM-to-PM coupling mechanism, whereas the semiconductor saturable absorber operation does not adversely affect timing jitter. The results show that ultrafast Cr:LiSAF lasers are promising compact and efficient ultralow-jitter sources.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. duoli@mit.edu
authors.forename: Duo
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Umit
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Demirbas
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Benedick
authors.forename: Alphan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sennaroglu
authors.forename: James G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Fujimoto
authors.forename: Franz X
authors.initials: FX
authors.lastname: Kärtner
mesh_terms: D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D053844:Lasers, Solid-State