Low phase noise optical pulse train based on a phase modulated optoelectronic oscillator

We report on preliminary study of a phase-modulated optoelectronic oscillator in which the conversion from phase to amplitude modulation is simply performed through dispersion of the optical fiber in the loop. Under strong phase modulation, oscillation occurs after the signal propagation though a few km of standard optical fiber, providing broad optical spectrum and a train of 5 ps optical pulses at 10 GHz with low phase noise. The impact of the fiber length on optical and RF performances is experimentally studied.