Computation of the timing jitter, phase jitter, and linewidth of a similariton laser

Abstract

We perform what we believe is the first computational study of phase jitter and comb linewidths in a nonsolitonic fiber laser with large changes in the pulse on each round trip. For fiber lasers operating in or near the similariton regime, we investigate how the pulse parameters and noise performance depend on the system parameters. Across a large dispersion range, the dechirped pulse width, timing jitter, phase jitter, and comb linewidths are smaller when the gain in the optical amplifier is larger. Over a narrow range of negative dispersion values near zero, the timing jitter and comb linewidths are smaller with a wider optical filter. However, with the wider optical filter, the pulse width increases significantly, and the noise performance deteriorates rapidly as the dispersion increases above zero. These trends are in general agreement with experimental studies of timing jitter and the linewidth of the carrier-envelope offset frequency in Yb-fiber lasers and are consistent with the Namiki-Haus theory of timing jitter in a stretched-pulse laser.