Series in Quantum Electronics
edited by
Henry Baltes, Peter Günter, Ursula Keller,
Fritz K. Kneubühl †, Walter Lukosz,
Hans Melchior, Markus W. Sigrist
Vol. 41
Adrian Schlatter
Noise Properties of High Repetition-
Rate Mode-Locked Lasers.
1st edition 2007. XVIII,
128 pages; € 64,00. ISBN 3-86628-144-7
Pulsed laser sources with repetition rates of several gigahertz play an
important role in many applications today. The largest market share is held by
telecommunication through optical fibers. Other applications include test and
measurement, spectroscopy, and optically sampled analog-to-digital conversion. All
these areas rely on stably operating lasers with low pulse-timing jitter, low
intensity noise, and / or low optical phase noise.
The first part of this thesis investigates the dynamics of passively
mode-locked lasers with a novel type of measurement. A detailed understanding
of laser dynamics is critical to avoid instabilities often observed with
passively mode-locked lasers. In cases where the laser dynamics do not agree
with the established theoretical models, the measurements lead to an
explanation.
The thesis then discusses the noise properties of mode-locked lasers and
proposes novel techniques for the measurement of relative timing jitter and
optical phase noise. With two passively mode-locked 10-GHz Er:Yb:glass lasers
in a free-running and a timing-stabilized configuration we achieve jitter which
is close to the limit given by quantum noise sources inside the laser cavities
in a wide range of noise frequencies. For optical phase noise measurements, a
technique is proposed that is especially suited for mode-locked lasers, which
have an optical spectrum consisting of many modes. While previous techniques
had to measure the phase noise of these modes one by one, the proposed method
does this simultaneously. This allows to derive fluctuations of all other pulse
parameters as well. We demonstrate this for 5-GHz passively mode-locked Nd:YVO4
lasers operating at 1.3 μm.
About the author:
Adrian Schlatter received his
diploma degree in physics from the ETH Zurich in 2002. He joined the Institute
of Quantum Electronics at ETH Zurich in the same year. His research focused on
passively mode-locked solid-state lasers operating at multi-gigahertz
repetition rates, dynamic behavior and stability, timing jitter, intensity
noise and optical phase noise.
Keywords: Mode-locked Lasers, Solid-State Lasers, Er:Yb:glass Lasers, Nd:YVO4
Lasers, Semiconductor Saturable Absorber Mirror (SESAM), Q-switched Mode
Locking (QML), Fluctuations, Relaxations, and Noise, Timing Jitter, Intensity
Noise, Optical Phase Noise, Quantum Noise
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order directly from: Hartung.Gorre@t-online.de