Abstract

Mode-locked lasers generating optical pulses with GHz repetition rate and duration of picoseconds (ps) or lower are attractive for several applications including optical communication, metrology and bio-imaging. Specifically, there is a growing demand for such a laser source with sub-picoseconds timing jitter for photonic analog to digital converters (PADC) systems [1]. Optical pulses can be generated by either the active or passive mode-locking technique. In passive mode-locking, the cavity length needs to be < 10 cm to achieve a GHz repetition rate [2]. In contrast, the active harmonic mode-locking technique has the advantage of enabling tunable repetition rate (with a resolution of cavity round trip frequency) although the pulse width may be slightly broader than that achieved using the passive mode-locking approach. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate the performance of an active harmonic mode-locked erbium-doped fiber ring laser producing 55 ps optical pulses at 1 GHz repetition rate with an RMS timing Jitter of 53.7 fs developed specifically for sub-sampled PADC.

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