Carrier-envelope offset frequency stabilization of a 100 fs-scale Ti:sapphire mode-locked laser for quantum frequency comb generation

Abstract

The carrier-envelope offset (CEO) frequency stabilization of a Ti:sapphire mode-locked laser with a Fourier-transform-limited pulse width of 100 fs-scale has been successfully realized. With the home-built f-2f interferometer, the CEO beat signal has been measured with a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) as high as 40 dB under a resolution bandwidth of 100 kHz, which means that the coherence of the octave-spanning supercontinuum (SC) is well retained, although the evaluated pulse soliton order (N ≈ 23) completely violate the previous theoretical limitation that N should be smaller than 16. Furthermore, a stabilized CEO frequency is achieved with residual phase noise suppressed to 660 mrad (integrated from 1 Hz to 100 kHz) and an Allan deviation relative to the optical carrier of 7.6 × 10−18 at 1 s integration time. This realization constructs a solid foundation for further generation of quantum frequency comb needed for ultra-sensitive optical timing measurement applications.