Balanced Optical-RF Phase Detector

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A balanced optical-RF phase detector for the extraction of low-jitter radiofrequency (RF) signals from optical pulse trains is demonstrated. The extraction of the low-jitter radiofrequency signals is based on the precise phase detection by use of a differentially biased Sagnac-loop interferometer and synchronous detection. The phase-error signal from this balanced optical-RF phase detector, which is robust against drifts and photodetector nonlinearities, is used to regenerate low-jitter radiofrequency signals from optical pulse trains. Alternatively, the phase-error signal is used to generate a low-jitter optical pulse train, synchronized with a master radiofrequency signal or to synchronize multiple modelocked lasers with each other.

Researchers

Franz Kaertner / Jungwon Kim

Departments: Research Laboratory of Electronics
Technology Areas: Communication Systems: Optical / Electronics & Photonics: Photonics, Semiconductors
Impact Areas: Connected World

  • balanced optical-radiofrequency phase detector
    United States of America | Granted | 7,397,567

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