Femtosecond laser-based synthesis of ultrastable microwave signals from optical frequency references

Published

March 15, 2005

Author(s)

A Bartels, Scott Diddams, Christopher W. Oates, G Wilpers, James C. Bergquist, Windell Oskay, Leo W. Hollberg

Abstract

Using femtosecond laser frequency combs to convert optical frequency references to the microwave domain, we demonstrate the synthesis of 10 GHz signals having an instability of <3.5e-15 at 1 s averaging time, limited by the optical reference. The residual instability and phase noise of the femtosecond laser based frequency synthesizers are 6.5e-16 at 1 s and -98 dBc/Hz at 1 Hz from the 10 GHz carrier. The timing jitter of the microwave signals relative to the optical reference is 3.3 fs in an integration window from 0.1 Hz to 1 MHz.

Citation

Optics Letters

Volume

30

Issue

6

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

femtosecond laser, frequency synthesis, optical frequency standard

Citation

Bartels, A. , Diddams, S. , Oates, C. , Wilpers, G. , Bergquist, J. , Oskay, W. and Hollberg, L. (2005), Femtosecond laser-based synthesis of ultrastable microwave signals from optical frequency references, Optics Letters, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=50160 (Accessed October 11, 2025)