Characterization of timing jitter in a 5 GHz quantum dot passively mode-locked laser.

The timing jitter performance of a 5 GHz quantum dot passively mode-locked laser is investigated at different harmonics in the RF spectrum. The necessity of measuring the phase noise at relatively large harmonic numbers is motivated experimentally in the context of determining the corner frequency, its correlation to the RF linewidth, and the related white noise plateau level. The single-sideband phase noise with an integrated timing jitter of 211 fs (4-80 MHz) is reported. An all-microwave technique has been used to determine a pulse-to-pulse rms timing jitter of 96 fs/cycle. This low timing jitter value makes the chip-scale quantum dot mode-locked laser an attractive source for low noise applications such as optical clocking and sampling.