Precision locking CW laser to ultrastable optical frequency comb by feed-forward method

X D Shao,Y B Su,H B Wang,G Q Chang,H N Han,S B Fang,Z Y Wei,Z Y Zhang

doi:10.1063/1.5121860

Abstract

We locked a 1064 nm continuous wave (CW) laser to a Yb:fiber optical frequency comb stabilized to an ultrastable 972 nm CW laser with the feed-forward method. Consequently, the stability and coherent properties of the ultrastable laser are precisely transferred to the 1064 nm CW laser through the frequency comb’s connection. The relative linewidth of the frequency-stabilized 1064 nm CW laser is narrowed to 1.14 mHz, and the stability reaches 1.5 × 10−17/s at the optical wavelength of 1064 nm. The phase noise characterization in the 1 mHz–10 MHz range is presented to indicate that feed-forward locking a CW laser to an ultrastable comb will offer a potential technique for many important applications, such as optical frequency synthesis and gravitational wave detection.

Highlights

In 2011, a novel feed-forward method, based on an acoustooptic frequency shifter (AOFS) without the phase-locked loop (PLL), was developed to stabilize the carrier envelope phase offset (CEO) signal in Optical frequency comb (OFC).16 Due to the real time response for frequency shift in the AOFS, the CEO control decreased dramatically to 12 as the residual timing jitter was successfully obtained in the Ti:sapphire comb
The phase noise characterization in the 1 mHz–10 MHz range is presented to indicate that feed-forward locking a continuous wave (CW) laser to an ultrastable comb will offer a potential technique for many important applications, such as optical frequency synthesis and gravitational wave detection
We demonstrated an ultranarrow linewidth 1064 nm CW laser by applying the feed-forward method to lock to a Yb:fiber OFC that was stabilized to an ultrastable 972 nm CW laser

Summary

Introduction

In 2011, a novel feed-forward method, based on an acoustooptic frequency shifter (AOFS) without the PLL, was developed to stabilize the carrier envelope phase offset (CEO) signal in OFCs.16 Due to the real time response for frequency shift in the AOFS, the CEO control decreased dramatically to 12 as the residual timing jitter was successfully obtained in the Ti:sapphire comb. ABSTRACT We locked a 1064 nm continuous wave (CW) laser to a Yb:fiber optical frequency comb stabilized to an ultrastable 972 nm CW laser with the feed-forward method.

Results

Conclusion