Frequency lock-in factor of fiber-optical parametric oscillators for all-optical clock recovery

The parameter “frequency lock-in factor (FLF)” is introduced into fiber-optical parametric oscillators (FOPOs) to measure the mode-locking capability of all-optical clock recovery. The pump power dependence of the FLF parameter is experimentally investigated for the 10GHz clock extraction. It is shown that the FLF parameter can be regarded as a quality factor of the FOPO system, similar to the finesse of FP filters. With the FLF of more than 1.3%, the corresponding timing jitter of the extracted clock is less than 0.025UI.