Asymmetric dual-loop feedback to suppress spurious tones and reduce timing jitter in self-mode-locked quantum-dash lasers emitting at 1.55 μm

We demonstrate an asymmetric dual-loop feedback method to suppress external cavity side-modes induced in self-mode-locked quantum-dash lasers with conventional single-and dual-loop feedback. In this Letter, we report optimal suppression of spurious tones by optimizing the delay in the second loop. We observed that asymmetric dual-loop feedback, with large (similar to 8x) disparity in loop lengths, gives significant suppression in external-cavity side-modes and produces flat radio frequency (RF) spectra close to the main peak with a low timing jitter, compared to single-loop feedback. Significant reduction in RF linewidth and timing jitter was produced by optimizing the delay time in the second feedback loop. Experimental results based on this feedback configuration validate predictions of recently published numerical simulations. This asymmetric dual-loop feedback scheme provides simple, efficient, and cost-effective stabilization of optoelectronic oscillators based on mode-locked lasers. (C) 2017 Optical Society of America