Synchronization of femtosecond laser pulses and RF signal by using a Sagnac Loop Mach-Zehnder interferometer

Dai, H.*; Hajima, Ryoichi

For future advanced energy recovery linac to generate femtosecond X-ray pulses, precise synchronization between sub-systems is highly desired. Typical synchronization methods based on direct photo detection are limited by detector nonlinearities, which lead to amplitude-to-phase conversion and introduce excess timing jitter. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate an optical-electronic mixed phase lock loop to synchronize the RF signal and laser pulses. In this synchronism setup, a Sagnac-loop Mach-Zehnder interferometer has been used to suppress the excess noise of direct photo detection. This scheme transfers the timing information into a intensity imbalance between the two output beams of the interferometer. As experimental demonstration, the single side-band phase noise of RF signal from the VCO is locked to the mode-locked Ti:Sapphire laser in the spectrum covering the range of 10 kHz to 1 MHz. This synchronization scheme greatly reduces the phase noise and timing jitter of the RF signal.