Phase-coherent asynchronous optical sampling system.

Abstract

Mutual phase coherence is the utmost crucial factor in an asynchronous optical sampling system. The enhancement is commonly achieved by phase-locking dual femtosecond lasers to a shared narrow-linewidth cavity-stabilized laser. Here we report such a system with a low residual optical phase jitter at a level of 0.04 rad in a Fourier frequency band from 1 Hz to 5 MHz around 1.55 µm, corresponding to a timing jitter of 30 as. The residual phase jitter reaches 1 rad at a Fourier frequency between 0.06 Hz and 0.1 Hz, from which the phase-coherence time is inferred to be at least 10 s. The multi-heterodyne beats experimentally reveal a hardware-limited phase coherence time of ∼8.155 s throughout the direct lasing spectral band.