Ultralow-frequency-noise stabilization of a laser by locking to an optical fiber-delay line

Kéfélian, F.; Jiang, Haifeng; Lemonde, P.; Santarelli, Giorgio

doi:10.1364/ol.34.000914

Cited by 150 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…The accuracy of the combs is set by the cw reference laser frequency, which is measured with a self-referenced comb against a Hydrogen maser and is accurate to ~ 10 kHz (limited by drift in the cw reference between measurements). This accuracy generally far exceeds the statistical uncertainty in the line center of a Doppler-broadened line (even for the high SNR signals demonstrated here) and a looser cw reference with ~MHz accuracy locked to a simpler cavity, molecular line or even fiber loop [42] would suffice. With our approach, the phase locks are sufficiently tight such that the residual linewidths are ~0.3 Hz and allow for long coherent averaging times of 3 seconds and a corresponding improvement in SNR.…”

Section: Iie Frequency Comb Stabilizationmentioning

confidence: 75%

Coherent dual-comb spectroscopy at high signal-to-noise ratio

2010

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Two coherent frequency combs are used to measure the full complex response of a sample in a configuration analogous to a dispersive Fourier transform spectrometer, infrared time domain spectrometer, or a multiheterodyne laser spectrometer. This dual comb spectrometer retains the frequency accuracy and resolution of the reference underlying the stabilized combs. We discuss the specific design of our coherent dual-comb spectrometer and demonstrate the potential of this technique by measuring the overtone vibration of hydrogen cyanide, centered at 194 THz (1545 nm). We measure the fully normalized, complex response of the gas over a 9 THz bandwidth at 220 MHz frequency resolution yielding 41,000 resolution elements. The average spectral signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) over the 9 THz bandwidth is 2,500 for both the magnitude and phase of the measured spectral response and the peak SNR is 4,000. This peak SNR corresponds to a fractional absorption sensitivity of 0.05% and a phase sensitivity of 250 microradians. As the spectral coverage of combs expands, coherent dual-comb spectroscopy could provide high frequency accuracy and resolution measurements of a complex sample response across a range of spectral regions.Work of U.S. government, not subject to copyright.

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Section: Iie Frequency Comb Stabilizationmentioning

confidence: 75%

Coherent dual-comb spectroscopy at high signal-to-noise ratio

2010

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“…Another example of an area in which a lower thermal sensitivity of the fiber propagation time may be essential is in ultralow-frequency noise stabilization of lasers to an optical fiber delay line [6]. Here a lower thermal sensitivity may allow for significant improvements in the achievable laser linewidth, enabling precise, compact, fielddeployable optical oscillators (e.g., to be put on satellites for nextgeneration Global Positioning Systems).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How to make the propagation time through an optical fiber fully insensitive to temperature variations

Fokoua¹,

Petrovich²,

Bradley³

et al. 2017

Optica

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Propagation time through standard (solid core) optical fibers changes with temperature at a rate of 40 ps/km/K. The thermo-optic effect in silica glass accounts for about 95% of this change and thus hollow core fibers, in which the majority of optical power propagates through an air rather than glass core, can have this sensitivity greatly reduced. To date we have demonstrated a sensitivity as low as 2 ps/km/K, this value being limited by thermallyinduced fiber elongation. In this paper, we predict and experimentally demonstrate that the thermal sensitivity of propagation time can be reduced to zero (or even made negative) in Hollow Core Photonic Bandgap Fibers (HC-PBGF) by compensating the thermally-induced fiber elongation with an equal and opposite thermally-induced group velocity change (i.e. by making the light travel faster through the elongated fiber). This represents the ultimate fiber solution for many propagation time sensitive applications.

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“…Optical feedback from a resonator [4] is a common approach to reduce the linewidth of an ECDL, and recent systems [5][6][7] have demonstrated linewidth narrowing down to 7 kHz. Other linewidth narrowing schemes, such as active electronic stabilization to a high-finesse, ultrastable vertical cavity [8,9], or an all-fiber Michelson interferometer [10], have achieved subhertz linewidth. However, due to finite loop gain at high frequencies, the high-frequency noise is usually not substantially reduced using those active stabilization methods.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-external-cavity distributed Bragg reflector laser with subkilohertz intrinsic linewidth

et al. 2012

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We report on a simple, compact, and robust 780 nm distributed Bragg reflector laser with subkilohertz intrinsic linewidth. An external cavity with optical path length of 3.6 m, implemented with an optical fiber, reduces the laser frequency noise by several orders of magnitude. At frequencies above 100 kHz the frequency noise spectral density is reduced by over 33 dB, resulting in an intrinsic Lorentzian linewidth of 300 Hz. The remaining lowfrequency noise is easily removed by stabilization to an external reference cavity. We further characterize the influence of feedback power and current variation on the intrinsic linewidth. In this Letter, we present a tunable, long-externalcavity DBR laser with a 3000-fold reduction of its intrinsic linewidth to 300 Hz. This is achieved by implementing a 3.6 m long external cavity using an optical fiber. The system exhibits noise suppression of over 33 dB at frequencies of 100 kHz and above. Low-frequency noise due to mechanical or thermal fluctuations in the feedback path can be controlled by stabilizing the laser to a reference cavity using an active servo loop. Feedback-induced mode instability [16] is avoided by operating within a 13 dB wide range of feedback power.We use a 780 nm DBR laser (Photodigm PH780DBR120T8-S) with 120 mW maximum output power as our source. The laser diode has a front facet reflectivity close to 1%, effective gain region length of 1.8 mm, and DBR reflectivity of 60% (all values are nominal values provided by manufacturer). The diode is temperature stabilized to slightly below room temperature. Throughout our measurements, we operated the laser at 100 mA (16 mW total output power). A beam splitter deflects 10% of the laser power into a 2 m long polarization-maintaining optical fiber that constitutes the feedback path (Fig. 1). An aperture is added before the angled fiber to block unwanted backreflection from the fiber tip. A mirror mounted on a piezoelectric transducer (PZT) reflects the light back into the fiber, and a quarterwave plate in combination with a polarizing beam splitter is used to adjust the feedback power. A maximum −30 dB fractional power can be reflected back into the laser. (Henceforth we denote the fractional feedback power incident on the laser collimator as p, which may be less than the fractional power that is mode matched into the active region of the laser diode.) The externalcavity laser is set up on a 12 00 × 18 00 aluminum baseplate and enclosed by a plastic case to reduce environmental perturbations.In general, the effect of external cavity optical feedback depends on the feedback power, cavity length, and the phase of the feedback light, as summarized by Tkach Fig. 1. Schematic setup for the long-external-cavity laser and the frequency noise characterization. M, mirror; AP, aperture; PM fiber, polarization-maintaining fiber; QWP, quarter-wave plate; BS, beam splitter; PBS, polarization beam splitter; APD, avalanche photodiode; PZT, piezoelectric transducer.

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Ultralow-frequency-noise stabilization of a laser by locking to an optical fiber-delay line

Cited by 150 publications

References 14 publications

Coherent dual-comb spectroscopy at high signal-to-noise ratio

Coherent dual-comb spectroscopy at high signal-to-noise ratio

How to make the propagation time through an optical fiber fully insensitive to temperature variations

Long-external-cavity distributed Bragg reflector laser with subkilohertz intrinsic linewidth

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