State-of-the-Art RF Signal Generation From Optical Frequency Division

Published

September 2, 2013

Author(s)

Archita Hati, Craig W. Nelson, Corey A. Barnes, Danielle G. Lirette, Tara M. Fortier, Franklyn J. Quinlan, Jason A. DeSalvo, Andrew D. Ludlow, Till P. Rosenband, Scott A. Diddams, David A. Howe

Abstract

We present the design of a novel, ultra-low phase-noise frequency synthesizer implemented with extremely low noise regenerative frequency dividers. This synthesizer generates eight outputs viz. 1.6 GHz, 320 MHz, 160 MHz, 80 MHz, 40 MHz, 20 MHz, 10 MHz and 5 MHz for an 8 GHz input frequency. The residual single sideband (SSB) phase-noise of the synthesizer at 5 MHz and 10 MHz outputs at 1 Hz offset from the carrier is -150 dBc/Hz and -145 dBc/Hz respectively, an unprecedented phase-noise. We also report the lowest values of phase-noise to date for 5 MHz and 10 MHz radio-frequency (RF) signals achieved with our synthesizer by dividing an 8 GHz signal generated from an ultra-stable optical-comb based frequency division. The absolute SSB phase-noise achieved for 5 MHz and 10 MHz signals at 1 Hz offset is -150 dBc/Hz and -143 dBc/Hz and at 100 kHz offset is -177 dBc/Hz and -174 dBc/Hz, respectively. The phase-noise of the 5 MHz signal corresponds to a frequency stability of approximately 7.6 x 10^-15 at 1 s averaging time for a measurement bandwidth (BW) of 500 Hz, and the integrated timing jitter over 100 kHz BW is 20 fs.

Citation

IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control

Volume

60

Issue

9

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

frequency synthesizer, optical frequency divider, phase-noise, regenerative frequency divider

Citation

Hati, A. , Nelson, C. , Barnes, C. , Lirette, D. , Fortier, T. , Quinlan, F. , DeSalvo, J. , Ludlow, A. , Rosenband, T. , Diddams, S. and Howe, D. (2013), State-of-the-Art RF Signal Generation From Optical Frequency Division, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control (Accessed October 27, 2025)