Compact optoelectronic oscillator with ultra-low phase noise performance

A compact optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) is presented which is using constructed using a DFB laser, a semiconductor Mach-Zehnder modulator, and a dielectric resonator based RF filter. The achieved phase noise is -50 dBc/Hz at 10 Hz and -130 dBc/Hz at 10 kHz from a 10 GHz oscillation frequency, a performance comparable to that of an OEO constructed with a diode-pumped YAG laser and an LiNbO/sub 3/ modulator.