Frequency Comb System Research Articles

Ultralow noise microwave generation with fiber-based optical frequency comb and application to atomic fountain clock

We demonstrate the use of a fiber-based femtosecond laser locked onto an ultrastable optical cavity to generate a low-noise microwave reference signal. Comparison with both a cryogenic sapphire oscillator (CSO) and a titanium-sapphire-based optical frequency comb system exhibit a stability of about 3×10−15 between 1 and 10 s. The microwave signal from the fiber system is used to perform Ramsey spectroscopy in a state-of-the-art cesium fountain clock. The resulting clock is compared to the CSO and exhibits a stability of 3.5×10−14τ−1/2.

High-precision wavelength calibration of astronomical spectrographs with laser frequency combs

We describe a possible new technique for precise wavelength calibration of high-resolution astronomical spectrographs using femtosecond-pulsed mode-locked lasers controlled by stable oscillators such as atomic clocks. Such ‘frequency combs’ provide a series of narrow modes which are uniformly spaced according to the laser's pulse repetition rate and whose absolute frequencies are known a priori with relative precision better than 10−12. Simulations of frequency comb spectra show that the photon-limited wavelength calibration precision achievable with existing echelle spectrographs should be ∼1 cm s−1 when integrated over a 4000 Å range. Moreover, comb spectra may be used to accurately characterize distortions of the wavelength scale introduced by the spectrograph and detector system. The simulations show that frequency combs with pulse repetition rates of 5–30 GHz are required, given the typical resolving power of existing and possible future echelle spectrographs. Achieving such high repetition rates, together with the desire to produce all comb modes with uniform intensity over the entire optical range, represents the only significant challenges in the design of a practical system. Frequency comb systems may remove wavelength calibration uncertainties from all practical spectroscopic experiments, even those combining data from different telescopes over many decades.

Optical Frequency Synthesis From a Cryogenic Sapphire Oscillator Using a Fiber-Based Frequency Comb

The authors have demonstrated optical frequency synthesis using a fiber-based frequency comb system, referenced to an ultrastable microwave oscillator. The oscillator is based on a high Q-factor cryogenic sapphire resonator cooled with liquid helium. The 100-MHz signal synthesized from the 10.8-GHz oscillation frequency of the cryogenic sapphire oscillator (CSO) was used to stabilize the repetition frequency of the mode-locked fiber laser. When the synthesized optical frequency was compared with a rubidium two-photon stabilized laser at 778 nm, the measured fractional frequency stability was ~6 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-14 </sup> tau <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-12</sup> for the averaging times tau between 1 and 100 s, and the best frequency stability was 3.0 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-15</sup> for an averaging time of 1280 s

Measurement of carrier-envelope phase of few cycles Ti:sapphire laser by difference frequency technique

The self-reference technique is widely used to measure the carrier-envelope phase offset (CEO) of femtosecond laser pulses in the normal femtosecond laser frequency comb system. However, the instability of the frequency comb system is increased because the photonic crystal fiber is introduced into the system to broaden the spectrum of femtosecond laser pulses outside the cavity. In this paper, we presented another method to measure specifically the CEO for the broad spectrum Ti:sapphire oscillator with the pulse duration of 7fs, namely the difference frequency technique, with which we have obtained the beat frequency signal with a S/N ratio greater than 31dB. This provided a good precondition for the next generation of the femtosecond laser frequency comb system without the photonic crystal fiber.

Long-term measurement of optical frequencies using a simple, robust and low-noise fiber based frequency comb

We have developed a fiber-based frequency comb system consisting of a simple mode-locked fiber laser and a backward pumping amplifier combined with a highly nonlinear fiber with a short zerodispersion wavelength. As a result, the signal to noise ratio of the obtained carrier-envelope-offset frequency beat is larger than 45 dB at a bandwidth of 100 kHz. Furthermore, we have succeeded in measuring the optical frequencies of a 1542-nm acetylene-stabilized laser and a 532-nm iodinestabilized Nd:YAG laser continuously for more than one week using the fiber-based comb system. The long-term measurement revealed that the frequency stability of the iodine-stabilized laser was 5.7 x 10(-15) with 100 000 s averaging.

Long term comparison of two fiber based frequency comb systems

Mode-locked erbium-doped fiber lasers are ideal comb generators for optical frequency metrology. We compare two fiber frequency combs by measuring an optical frequency independently with both combs and comparing their results. The two frequency measurements agree within 6x10-16. This is to our knowledge the first direct comparison between two fiber based frequency combs.

Absolute frequency of theSr+885sS1∕22–4dD5∕22reference transition at445THzand evaluation of systematic shifts

A Cs referenced optical frequency comb system has been used to measure the center frequency of the $5s\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}^{2}S_{1∕2}--4d\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}^{2}D_{5∕2}$ transition at $445\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{THz}$ in a single, trapped, and laser-cooled $^{88}\mathrm{Sr}^{+}$ ion. The transition frequency ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{SD}=444 779 044 095 510\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{Hz}\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}50\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{Hz}\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}(1\ensuremath{\sigma})$ is obtained, when corrected for systematic shifts. A detailed calculation of the estimated systematic shifts is presented which yields improved values for the various shift parameters including blackbody and electric quadrupole moment shifts.