Timing jitter caused by amplified spontaneous emission in mode-locked solid state lasers

Abstract

We derive a set of motion equations for the amplitude, the inverse pulse width, the chirp, the frequency, the central position of the pulse and the phase in a mode-locked solid state laser. In the hypothesis of the low and white noise, taking account of the chirp, the timing jitter induced by the amplified spontaneous emission is estimated for a Ti:sapphire laser. It results that for a certain mode-locked solid state laser with a pulse profile of sech 2 (1.763 t/ τ), the jitter is approximately a linear function of the net group delay dispersion (GDD), and turns to be larger with the GDD increasing. However, the jitter cannot be reduced to zero even if the GDD is completely compensated.