Locking bandwidth of mode-locked semiconductor lasers

Abstract

Measurements on fundamentally-driven and harmonically-driven mode-locked lasers show that these lasers have low timing jitter when the RF drive frequency is tuned to within the 'locking bandwidth' of the fundamental of the cavity resonance frequency, or a harmonic of the frequency. It is shown that the locking bandwidth is determined by a new parameter termed the 'pull-in time'. The pull-in time is independent of the cavity length and the harmonic number of the drive.