Abstract

We characterize the instability of an rf clock signal caused by free-space transmission of a frequency comb (FC) under typical laboratory conditions. The phase-noise spectra show the involvement of multiple random processes. For a $10\mathrm{m}$ transmission, the rms timing jitter integrated over $1–{10}^5\mathrm{Hz}$ is $95\mathrm{fs}$, and the root Allan variance over $1\mathrm{s}$ is $4\times {10}^{-13}$. The measured Allan variance has a ${\tau }^{-1}$ behavior and an excellent agreement with the phase noise measurement. These results indicate the feasibility of FC-based free-space rf clock distribution over short distances.

© 2009 Optical Society of America

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