Timing Jitter

Abstract

Pulse trains, generated e.g. in mode-locked lasers, exhibit some deviations of the temporal pulse positions from those in a perfectly periodic pulse train. This pheno­menon is called timing jitter and is important for many applications, e.g. for long-range optical fiber communications or for optical sampling measurements. Similarly, pulses from Q-switched lasers exhibit timing jitter, although the involved physical mechanisms are very different. Another type of timing jitter occurs in photodetectors.