Sub-200 fs rms Jitter Constant Fraction Discriminator for Streak Camera Triggering

Streak camera systems are most of the time triggered by short light pulses affected by amplitude noise. This implies jitter on the trigger signal which degrades the temporal resolution. A Constant Fraction Discriminator (CFD) provides a triggering solution which is immunized to this type of noise. A new CFD design approach is described in this work. With state-of-the-art discrete components in terms of high speed electronics, the designed CFD reaches an ultra-low jitter level. Using a heterodyne measurement technique, the phase noise study reveals a 120 fs rms jitter at fixed light power amplitude. The time walk of the system is evaluated to +/- 10 ps for a 1: 10 optical power ratio. The CFD also offers two distinct outputs for the streak camera: the first provides a square wave signal for the single shot mode and the second provides a high frequency sinusoid for the synchroscan mode.