Laser Phase And Frequency Stabilization

Frequency stabilization is needed for high precision because all lasers demonstrate frequency wander at some level.

Laser phase and frequency stabilization.

Kowalski and james h. Drever university of glasgow and california institute of technology pasadena ca 91125 usa j. The phase of the reflected light at the carrier frequency represents a time average of the incident laser phase and frequency. The stabilization of the carrier envelope offset phase or frequency of a mode locked laser ceo stabilization can be based on e g a phase measurement with an f 2f interferometer and feedback via some wedge or tilted mirror in the laser resonator.

We describe a class of techniques whereby a laser frequency can be stabilized to a fixed optical cavity resonance with an adjustable offset providing a wide tuning range for the central frequency. 22 573 575 1973. Laser phase and frequency stabilization using an optical resonator article drever1983laserpa title laser phase and frequency stabilization using an optical resonator author r. Laser phase and frequency stabilization using an optical resonator r.

We describe a new and highly effective optical frequency discriminator and laser stabilization system based on signals reflected from a stable fabry perot reference interferometer. This instability is primarily due to temperature variations mechanical imperfections and laser gain dynamics 4 which change laser cavity lengths laser driver current and voltage fluctuations atomic transition widths and. Thus with suitable design the servo loop bandwidth is not limited by the cavity response time. The pockels cell actually modulates the laser s phase but the distinction between phase and frequency modulation is irrelevant for the conceptual model.

Physical optical and electronic aspects of this discriminator. We show that a high speed domain exists in which the system responds to the phase rather than frequency change of the laser. Physical optical and electronic aspects of this discriminator laser frequency stabilization system are considered in detail. High sensitivity for detection of resonance information is achieved by optical heterodyne detection with sidebands produced by rf phase modulation.

Ward journal applied physics b year 1983 volume 31 pages 97. These techniques require only minor modifications to the standard pound drever hall locking techniques and have the advantage of not altering the intrinsic stability of the frequency reference.