Generation of ultra-low jitter radio frequency phase pulses by a phase-locked oscillator.

Abstract

We demonstrate a novel, to the best of our knowledge, method for mode locking of an oscillator, which is based on the injection of a strong sinusoidal signal from an external source into the cavity. The oscillator generates a low phase noise carrier signal with a train of ultra-low jitter, short 2π phase pulses at a repetition period equal to the cavity round-trip time. Both the carrier signal and phase pulses are phase-locked to the external source. We demonstrate the effect in an optoelectronic oscillator that generates a train of short phase pulses at a high carrier frequency with the broadband spectrum of a dense RF frequency comb. The phase pulses can be converted to short, ultra-low jitter intensity RF pulses by beating the oscillator signal with the external source, used for locking.