Jitter reduction by intracavity active phase modulation in a mode-locked semiconductor laser

We experimentally verify the theory of Haus et al. [IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 40, 41 (2004)] on the effects of timing jitter using intracavity phase modulation on the pulse train of a mode-locked laser. The theory is based on the solution of the Heisenberg-Langevin equation in the presence of dispersion and intracavity phase modulation. Using active intracavity phase modulation, we have reduced the timing jitter on a 10.24 GHz mode-locked diode laser by 50% from 304 to 150 fs integrated from 1 Hz to the Nyquist frequency of 5.12 GHz. (C) 2009 Optical Society of Americ