Amplitude And Frequency Stabilization Of Solid-State Lasers

Abstract

The investigations with the purpose to increase amplitude and frequency stability of a solid-state lasers, which may be applied in laser spectroscopy, metrology, communication, information processing, are reported. The spectral distribution of natural amplitude noise of cw solid-state lasers was considered. The effect of noise suppression at frequency of relaxation oscillation in laser with intracavity frequency doubling was analyzed as well as sub-Poissonian photon statistics. In the experiments with cw YAG:Nd lasers the amplitude noise close to natural limit was achieved over a wide range of fluctuation frequency. It was shown that the mentioned effect of noise suppression results the amplitude noise less then 0.001% over the range 10-200 kHz. The molecular cesium spectroscopic reference standard for long- term frequency stabilization in 1 μm region is described. The sub-Doppler spectrum of Cs2 saturation absorption is represented over the YAG:Nd laser tuning range near the wavelength 1.06415 μm. This spectrum produces the optical scale of reference frequencies, which looks favorable for various heterodyne applications. Frequency stabilization of YAG:Nd laser onto Cs2 absorption lines is reported. The Allan variance measurements provided the highest frequency stability of 6x10-11 relative units.