An experimental and theoretical analysis of jitter in self-pulsating lasers synchronized to periodic electrical signals

We investigate both experimentally and theoretically the behavior of pulse jitter in compact disk (CD) self-pulsating lasers that have been synchronized to an applied periodic electrical signal. Our investigations reveal that pulse-to-pulse jitter in a synchronized laser is almost entirely unchanged from that in an unsynchronized laser under the same bias conditions. The major effect of synchronization is the suppression of long term jitter.