An atomic optical filter working at 15 μm based on internal frequency stabilized laser pumping

Abstract

An excited state Faraday anomalous dispersion optical filter (ES-FADOF) working at the optical communication wavelength (1.5 μm) is realized. Unlike the usual ES-FADOF schemes using an external frequency stabilization, an internal frequency stabilization scheme is proposed and the working atoms inside the filter are adopted as the reference. A particular cross line of multiple transitions is used for the frequency stabilization for the pump laser and thus, a higher pump efficiency is achieved. For example, compared with previous ES-FADOF schemes, this method can increase the transmittance from 10% to 60% at 100 °C. Moreover, in this scheme, the external frequency stabilization is not necessary and the volume of the atomic filter can be reduced. This simplifies the whole structure and a compact ES-FADOF can thus be realized.