FREQUENCY STABILITY ENHANCEMENT FROM CARRIER-ENVELOPE RESONANCE IN A SURFACE-ACOUSTIC-WAVE DELAY-LINE OSCILLATOR

We have built a new injection-locking set-up which allows the study of low frequency noise in an oscillator. The interaction between a drivi ng 100 MHz signal and a surface acoustic wave delay line oscillator un dergoing a nonlinear modulational instability is investigated. Driving amplitude is used to control the synchronization range and therefore the frequency stability of a newly discovered carrier-envelope resonan ce process. In the soliton-locked regime, fundamental and subharmonic steps attached to a Lorentzian shape frequency-amplitude characteristi c are found. They are explained thanks to a driven nonlinear Schroding er model and the joined synchronization map. (C) 1996 American Institu te of Physics.