Extremely narrow optical resonances in cold atoms or single trapped ions can be measured with high resolution. A laser locked to such a narrow optical resonance could serve as a highly stable oscillator for an all-optical atomic clock. However, until recently there was no reliable clockwork mechanism that could count optical frequencies of hundreds of terahertz. Techniques using femtosecond-laser frequency combs, developed within the past few years, have solved this problem. The ability to count optical oscillations of more than 1015 cycles per second facilitates high-precision optical spectroscopy, and has led to the construction of an all-optical atomic clock that is expected eventually to outperform today's state-of-the-art caesium clocks.

We demonstrate a great simplification in the long-standing problem of measuring optical frequencies in terms of the cesium primary standard. An air-silica microstructure optical fiber broadens the frequency comb of a femtosecond laser to span the optical octave from 1064 to 532 nm, enabling us to measure the 282 THz frequency of an iodine-stabilized Nd:YAG laser directly in terms of the microwave frequency that controls the comb spacing. Additional measurements of established optical frequencies at 633 and 778 nm using the same femtosecond comb confirm the accepted uncertainties for these standards.

ZusammenfassungDas Wasserstoffatom (H) stellt ein einzigartiges System für Tests der Quanten-Elektrodynamik dar. Aufgrund seiner einfachen Struktur und genauen theoretischen Beschreibung liefert es außerdem wichtige Daten für die Bestimmung der RydbergKonstante R ∞ und des Proton-Ladungsradius r p im Rahmen der globalen Anpassung fundamentaler Konstanten durch das Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA). Im Jahre 2010 kam das sogenannte "proton size puzzle" auf, eine Diskrepanz von sieben Standardabweichungen zwischen CODATA und dem zehn mal genauer gemessenen Wert von r p in myonischem Wasserstoff (µ -p, [1, 2] AbstractThe hydrogen atom (H) is a unique system for tests of quantum electrodynamics (QED). Due to its simplicity and accurate theoretical description, it also provides key input data for the determination of the Rydberg constant R ∞ and the proton root mean square (r.m.s.) charge radius r p in the global adjustment of fundamental constants [4] by the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA). In the year 2010, the "proton size puzzle" emerged, which refers to a discrepancy of seven standard deviations between CODATA and a ten times more accurate measurement of r p in muonic hydrogen (µ -p, [1, 2]). Proposed solutions for this puzzle cover a wide range of scenarios, up to physics beyond the standard model [3]. This thesis reports on a novel scheme for high resolution spectroscopy of dipole allowed 2S -nP transitions in H, using a cryogenic beam of H atoms that are prepared in the meta-stable 2S F =0 1/2 state by state selective optical excitation. Such measurements can be used for a new determination of R ∞ and r p from H spectroscopy, shedding new light on the "proton size puzzle". The scheme has been applied to spectroscopy of the 2S-4P transition first, yielding: These values are as accurate as the ones determined from the aggregate world data of precision H spectroscopy (15 measurements) that enter the CODATA adjustment. While a discrepancy of 3.8 combined standard deviations is found to the latter, the presented results agree with the measurements in µ -p. The 2S-4P experiment is essentially unaffected by the systematic effects dominating the uncertainties in the previous most precise determinations of R ∞ using dipole forbidden two photon transitions in H. Instead, the main systematic effects are the first order Doppler effect, canceled by the use of an active fiber-based retroreflector (AFR) developed in this thesis, and line shape distortions due to quantum interference (QI) of neighboring atomic resonances. The latter effect has come to the attention of the precision spectroscopy community only recently [8,9]. Apparent QI line shifts have been studied experimentally, yielding the first direct observation in precision spectroscopy of largely separated atomic resonances. The observed shifts of up to ± 51 kHz are six times larger than the proton size discrepancy for the 2S-4P transition. They are brought under control by a suitable line shape model function, derived and...