Timing Stability Comparison Study of RF Synthesis Techniques

High-precision and low-noise timing transfer from a master clock to different end stations of a free-electron laser (FEL) is an essential task.[1] Timing precisions ranging from few tens of femtoseconds to sub-femtoseconds are required for seeded FELs and attosecond science centers. Mode-locked lasers referenced to RF standards are commonly used as master oscillators, due to their superior stability and timing precision, depicting timing jitter in the attosecond range.[2] In this matter, one of the biggest challenges is to transfer the timing stability of mode-locked lasers to RF sources. Here, we compare and contrast two of the most common techniques used for laser-to-RF synthesis in FEL facilities: (i) RF signal extraction from the optical pulse train using photodiodes, and (ii) VCO-to-laser synchronization. Test setups are built to measure both the absolute phase noise of the generated RF signal and the relative timing jitter with respect to the mode-locked laser. Short-term timing jitter values varying between 10 and 100 fs are achieved for different test setups, while long term timing drift ranging to some hundreds of fs due to environmental influence are observed