Abstract
The dependence on seeding power and seeding wavelength of the key parameters of an externally injection-seeded Fabry-Perot laser was investigated. It is shown that the optimum power is determined by a tradeoff between low timing jitter/high side-mode suppression, and short pulse widths. It is demonstrated experimentally that by injecting -17 dBm of narrowband cw light, the timing jitter can be reduced by 60% and a side-mode suppression ratio of 17 dB can be achieved without noticeably increasing the pulse width. The results show that careful setting of the wavelength and power level of the injected seed are required in a tunable picosecond source based on external injection seeding.