Residual amplitude modulation mechanisms in modulation transfer spectroscopy that use electro-optic modulators

Abstract

Three independent mechanisms are described that contaminate the phase-modulated pump beam of an optical frequency reference stabilized by modulation transfer spectroscopy (MTS) with residual amplitude modulation (RAM). The electro-optic modulator, the beam geometry and the absorption of the saturated medium all separately generate undesired RAM that degrades the accuracy of the optical frequency reference. An analysis is presented that shows how frequency shifts introduced by the different mechanisms can be evaluated in typical MTS set-ups and minimized. The analysis also shows how the detector phase can be used to measure the total RAM in the system and how the phase required to remove any remaining frequency offsets can be evaluated.