Direct-Modulation Optoelectronic Oscillator for Optical Pulse and Frequency Comb Generation

We report the generation of an optical pulse train with a 10 GHz repetition rate in a dual loop direct-modulation optoelectronic oscillator (OEO).Pulse generation is achieved using nonlinear compression in the OEO 5 km-long optical delay line.3 ps pulses with a timing jitter of 13 fs are reported, while the OEO maintains a phase noise of -133 dBc/Hz at 10 kHz from the carrier.Two architectures are compared experimentally and theoretically.A frequency comb with a 1.2 THz linewidth at -30 dB is generated.