High frequency source having heterodyned laser oscillators injection- locked to a mode-locked laser

摘要

Two independent laser oscillators are injection-locked to different optical modes of a mode-locked laser, then combined and detected to produce the heterodyne output signal in the microwave to submillimeter wave frequency band. Since the phase fluctuations of the mode-locked laser modes are highly correlated, the phase fluctuations of the heterodyne output signal are greatly reduced, providing a low phase- noise oscillator signal. Since the modes of the mode-locked laser can span hundreds of GigaHertz, the oscillator can be employed to generate microwave, millimeter wave or submillimeter wave frequencies.