Regenerative rational mode locked laser

We propose and demonstrate a novel approach of mode locked laser to generate pulse trains at high repetition rate, with low phase noise and broadband tunability. The architecture takes advantage of regenerative mode locking to enhance the frequency selectivity by more than 25 dB and the noise performances of rational mode locking. The output pulse train phase noise combines ideal frequency multiplication of the RF synthesizer at low offset frequency (up to 10 kHz) and low residual phase noise of regenerative lasers at higher offset frequencies.