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 m transmission, the rms timing jitter integrated over 1-10⁵ Hz is 95 fs, and the root Allan variance over 1 s is 4×10⁻¹³. The measured Allan variance has a τ⁻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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History
Original Manuscript: August 11, 2009
Manuscript Accepted: October 2, 2009
Revised Manuscript: September 29, 2009
Published: October 27, 2009

References

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Author Affiliations

Ayshah Alatawi, Ravi P. Gollapalli, Lingze Duan

University of Alabama in Huntsville

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