Two-hertz-linewidth Nd:YAG lasers at 1064 nm stabilized to vertically mounted ultra-stable cavities

Two Nd：YAG lasers operating at 1064 nm are separately servo-locked to two vertically mounted ultra-stable cavities. The optical heterodyne beat between two cavity-stabilized lasers shows that the linewidth of each laser reaches 2 Hz and the average frequency drift reduces to less than 1 Hz/s.

Suppression of laser power error in a miniaturized atomic co-magnetometer based on split ratio optimization

A miniaturized atomic spin-exchange relaxation-free(SERF)co-magnetometer measures angular velocity using a balanced polarimetry technique which is easily affected by the laser power.A laser power closed-loop control system is usually used to suppress the fluctuation of the laser power.Although this method can greatly eliminate the fluctuation of the in-loop laser power(the feedback laser),it cannot fully eliminate the fluctuation of the out-of-loop laser power(the signal measurement laser).This leads to SERF gyroscope laser power error,which reduces the inertial measurement accuracy.In this paper,the influence mechanism of the split ratio(the ratio of the in-loop laser power to the out-of-loop laser power)on the out-of-loop laser power control accuracy is analyzed by establishing a laser power transmission model inside and outside the loop.Moreover,a method is developed to improve the out-of-loop laser power stability by optimizing the split ratio.Comparative experiments showed that the relative Allan standard deviation of the out-of-loop laser power decreased from 5.48×10^(-6)to 2.62×10^(-6)at 100 s,and decreased by an order of magnitude from 1.76×10^(-5)to 3.30×10^(-6)at1000 s.Correspondingly,the rate ramp coefficient in the Allan standard deviation curve of the SERF gyroscope test data decreased from 1.312[(°/h)/h]to 0.246[(°/h)/h].And the bias stability increased from 0.032°/h to 0.019°/h.Therefore,the proposed method can improve the long-term stability of the probe laser power and effectively suppress the laser power error of the SERF gyroscope.

Laser frequency stabilization and shifting by using modulation transfer spectroscopy

The stabilizing and shifting of laser frequency are very important for the interaction between the laser and atoms. The modulation transfer spectroscopy for the 87Rb atom with D2 line transition F = 2 →F＇ = 3 is used for stabilizing and shifting the frequency of the external cavity grating feedback diode laser. The resonant phase modulator with electro-optical effect is used to generate frequency sideband to lock the laser frequency. In the locking scheme, circularly polarized pump- and probe-beams are used. By optimizing the temperature of the vapor, the pump- and probe-beam intensity, the laser linewidth of 280 kHz is obtained. Furthermore, the magnetic field generated by a solenoid is added into the system. Therefore the system can achieve the frequency locking at any point in a range of hundreds of megahertz frequency shifting with very low power loss.

Frequency stabilization of a 399-nm laser by modulation transfer spectroscopy in an ytterbium hollow cathode lamp

The modulation transfer spectroscopy in an ytterbium hollow cathode lamp at 399 nm is measured. The error signal for frequency locking is optimized by measuring the dependences of its slope, linewidth and magnitude on various parameters. Under the optimum condition, the laser frequency at 399 nm can be stabilized. The long-term stability of laser frequency is measured by monitoring the fluorescence signal of the ytterbium atomic beam induced by the locked laser. The laser frequency is shown to be tightly locked, and the stabilized laser is successfully applied to the cooling of ytterbium atoms.

Study of a low power dissipation,miniature laser-pumped rubidium frequency standard

This paper studies a miniature low power consumption laser-pumped atom vapour cell clock scheme. Pumping ^87Rb with a vertical cavity surface emitting laser diode pump and locking the laser frequency on a Doppler-broadened spectral line, it records a 5 × 10^-11τ-1/2 （τ〈500 s） frequency stability with a table-top system in a primary experiment. The study reveals that the evaluated scheme is at the level of 2.7 watts power consumption, 90 cm^3 volume and 10^-12τ-1/2 short-term frequency stability.

Improvement of Laser Frequency Stabilization for the Optical Pumping Cesium Beam Standard

A method is presented to improve the laser frequency stabilization for the optical pumping cesium clock. By comparing the laser frequency stabilization of different schemes, we verify that the light angle is an important factor that limits the long-term frequency stability. We minimize the drift of the light angle by using a fiber- coupled output, and lock the frequency of a distributed-feedback diode laser to the fluorescence spectrum of the atomic beam. The measured frequency stability is about 3.5 ×10^-11 at i s and reaches 1.5 × 10^-12 at 2000s. The Allan variance keeps going down for up to thousands of seconds, indicating that the medium- and long-term stability of the laser frequency is significantly improved and perfectly fulfills the requirement for the optical pumping cesium clock.

Cloud Detection and Centroid Extraction of Laser Footprint Image of GF-7 Satellite Laser Altimetry

The laser altimeter loaded on the GaoFen-7(GF-7)satellite is designed to record the full waveform data and footprint image,which can obtain high-precision elevation control points for stereo image.The footprint camera equipped on the GF-7 laser altimetry system can capture the energy distribution at the time of laser emission and the image of the ground object where the laser falls,which can be used to judge whether the laser is affected by the cloud.At the same time,the centroid of laser spot on the footprint image can be extracted to monitor the change of laser pointing stability.In this manuscript,a data quality analysis scheme of laser altimetry based on footprint image is presented.Firstly,the cloud detection of footprint image is realized based on deep learning.The fusion result of the model is about 5%better than that of the traditional cloud detection algorithm,which can quickly and accurately determine whether the laser spot is affected by cloud.Secondly,according to the characteristics of footprint image,a threshold constrained ellipse fitting method for extracting the centroid of laser spot is proposed to monitor the pointing stability of long-period lasers.Based on the above method,the change of laser spot centroid since GF-7 satellite was put into operation is analyzed,and the conclusions obtained have certain reference significance for the quality control of satellite laser altimetry data and the analysis of pointing angle stability.

An optical fiber spool for laser stabilization with reduced acceleration sensitivity to 10^(-12)/g

Environmental vibration causes mechanical deformation in optical fibers, which induces excess frequency noise in fiber-stabilized lasers. In order to solve such a problem, we propose an ultralow acceleration sensitivity fiber spool with symmetrically mounted structure. By numerical analysis with the finite element method, we obtain the optimal geometry parameters of the spool with which the horizontal and vertical acceleration sensitivity can be reduced to 3.25 × 10^-12/g and 5.38 × 10^-12/g respectively. Moreover, the structure features the insensitivity to the variation of geometry parameters,which will minimize the influence from numerical simulation error and manufacture tolerance.

Spectral filtering of dual lasers with a high-finesse length-tunable cavity for rubidium atom Rydberg excitation

We propose and demonstrate an alternative method for spectral filtering and frequency stabilization of both 780-nm and 960-nm lasers using a high-finesse length-tunable cavity(HFLTC).Firstly,the length of HFLTC is stabilized to a commercial frequency reference.Then,the two lasers are locked to this HFLTC using the Pound–Drever–Hall(PDH)method which can narrow the linewidths and stabilize the frequencies of both lasers simultaneously.Finally,the transmitted lasers of HFLTC with each power up to about 100μW,which act as seed lasers,are amplified using the injection locking method for single-atom Rydberg excitation.The linewidths of obtained lasers are narrowed to be less than 1 k Hz,meanwhile the obtained lasers'phase noise around 750 k Hz are suppressed about 30 d B.With the spectrally filtered lasers,we demonstrate a Rabi oscillation between the ground state and Rydberg state of single-atoms in an optical trap tweezer with a decay time of(67±37)μs,which is almost not affected by laser phase noise.We found that the maximum short-term laser frequency fluctuation of a single excitation lasers is at~3.3 k Hz and the maximum long-term laser frequency drift of a single laser is~46 k Hz during one month.Our work develops a stable and repeatable method to provide multiple laser sources of ultra-low phase noise,narrow linewidth,and excellent frequency stability,which is essential for high precision atomic experiments,such as neutral atom quantum computing,quantum simulation,quantum metrology,and so on.

Far-Infrared Laser Diagnostics in EAST

Structure, improvements and experiment results of a vertical three-channel far- in- frared （FIR） hydrogen cyanide （HCN） laser interferometer, operated routinely in EAST to measure the electron density profile, are presented. Moreover, a five-channel deuterium cyanide （DCN） laser interferometer was developed successfully. Some key issues confronted in development, including the economization of working gas and the solution to atmospheric absorption, are resolved and described in detail.

Saturated absorption spectrum of cesium micrometric-thin cell with suppressed crossover spectral lines

Micrometric-thin cells(MCs)with alkali vapor atoms have been valuable for research and applications of hyperfine Zeeman splitting and atomic magnetometers under strong magnetic fields.We theoretically and experimentally study the saturated absorption spectra using a 100-μm cesium MC,where the pump and probe beams are linearly polarized with mutually perpendicular polarizations,and the magnetic field is along the pump beam.Because of the distinctive thin chamber of the MC,crossover spectral lines in saturated absorption spectra are largely suppressed leading to clear splittings of hyperfine Zeeman transitions in experiments,and the effect of spatial magnetic field gradient is expected to be reduced.A calculation method is proposed to achieve good agreements between theoretical calculations and experimental results.This method successfully explains the suppression of crossover lines in MCs,as well as the effects of magnetic field direction,propagation and polarization directions of the pump/probe beam on saturated absorption spectrum.The saturated absorption spectrum with suppressed crossover lines is used for laser frequency stabilization,which may provide the potential value of MCs for high spatial resolution strong-field magnetometry with high sensitivity.

Decreased vibrational susceptibility of Fabry-Perot cavities via designs of geometry and structural support

Ultra-stable optical cavities are widely used for laser frequency stabilization. In these experiments the laser performance relies on the length stability of the Fabry-Perot cavities. Vibration-induced deformation is one of the dominant factors that affect the stability of ultra-stable optical cavities. We have quantitatively analysed the elastic deformation of Fabry-Perot cavities with various shapes and mounting configurations. Our numerical result facilitates a novel approach for the design of ultra-stable cavities that are insensitive to vibrational perturbations. This approach can be applied to many experiments such as laser frequency stabilization, high-precision laser spectroscopy, and optical frequency standards.

Vibration insensitive optical ring cavity

The mounting configuration of an optical ring cavity is optimized for vibration insensitivity by finite element analysis. A minimum response to vertical accelerations is found by simulations made for different supporting positions.

Recent advances in laser self-injection locking to high-Q microresonators

The stabilization and manipulation of laser frequency by means of an external cavity are nearly ubiquitously used in fundamental research and laser applications. While most of the laser light transmits through the cavity, in the presence of some back-scattered light from the cavity to the laser, the self-injection locking effect can take place, which locks the laser emission frequency to the cavity mode of similar frequency. The self-injection locking leads to dramatic reduction of laser linewidth and noise. Using this approach, a common semiconductor laser locked to an ultrahigh-Q microresonator can obtain sub-Hertz linewidth, on par with state-of-the-art fiber lasers. Therefore it paves the way to manufacture high-performance semiconductor lasers with reduced footprint and cost. Moreover, with high laser power, the optical nonlinearity of the microresonator drastically changes the laser dynamics, offering routes for simultaneous pulse and frequency comb generation in the same microresonator. Particularly, integrated photonics technology, enabling components fabricated via semiconductor CMOS process, has brought increasing and extending interest to laser manufacturing using this method. In this article, we present a comprehensive tutorial on analytical and numerical methods of laser self-injection locking, as well a review of most recent theoretical and experimental achievements.

Frequency Control System with Digital Signal Processing Techniques

The frequency of digitally controlled iodine stabilized He-Ne laser locked to a hyperfine component in ^127I2 was measured using the National Metrology Institute of Japan＇s reference iodine stabilized He-Ne laser. This laser is operated under the conditions of the practical implementation and its frequency with respect to the International Committee for Weights and Measure recommended value is known from international comparisons. Adopting a sampling rate of 120 kHz for the control system of an iodine stabilized He-Ne laser enables frequency deviation of the test laser from the reference laser by ＋ 5 kHz （relative accuracy of 1 ×10^11） thus limited only by the reproducibility of the iodine stabilized He-Ne laser itself.

Modulation transfer spectroscopy based on acousto-optic modulator with zero frequency shift

We present a modulation transfer spectroscopy（MTS） configuration based on an acousto-optic modulator by using a variant of the typical double pass structure. One beam is modulated by using an acousto-optic modulator in opposite diffraction order to cancel the carrier frequency shift and produce a modulated pump beam. The line shape performance is investigated theoretically and experimentally. Laser frequency stabilization of the proposed configuration is demonstrated for the133 Cs ｜62 S1/2, F = 4 → ｜62 P3/2, F = 5 transition. The Allan deviations, which are measured by using beat note signals and the three-cornered hat method, are 3.6×10-11 in an integration time of 100 s and approximately 4×10-11 in a longer integration time.

Stabilized DFB laser system with large tuning range

We propose, design, and realize a compact stabilized laser system that can be tuned within 24 GHz automatically. This laser system consists of two distributed feedback （DFB） lasers, one of which is reference and locked to the D2 line of Rb87, the other laser is a slave that is locked to the reference laser via a loop servo. We measured the frequency of the beating signal of the two lasers and generated an error signal, which controlled the frequency of the slave laser to close the loop. We compressed the fluctuation of the beating signal’s frequency to less than 1 MHz. Furthermore, the system can also automatically determine and control whether the slave is red detuned or blue detuned to the reference. The dimensions of our laser system are about 15 cm×20 cm×10 cm. This kind of laser system can be applied in many important applications, such as atomic interferometer and cold atomic clock.

High-power non-perturbative laser delivery diagnostics at the final focus of 100-TW-class laser pulses

Controlling the delivery of multi-terawatt and petawatt laser pulses to final focus,both in position and angle,is critical to many laser applications such as optical guiding,laser–plasma acceleration,and laser-produced secondary radiation.We present an online,non-destructive laser diagnostic,capable of measuring the transverse position and pointing angle at focus.The diagnostic is based on a unique double-surface-coated wedged-mirror design for the final steering optic in the laser line,producing a witness beam highly correlated with the main beam.By propagating low-power kilohertz pulses to focus,we observed spectra of focus position and pointing angle fluctuations dominated by frequencies below 70 Hz.The setup was also used to characterize the excellent position and pointing angle correlation of the 1 Hz high-power laser pulses to this low-power kilohertz pulse train,opening a promising path to fast non-perturbative feedback concepts even on few-hertz-class high-power laser systems.

Laser stabilizing to ytterbium clock transition with Rabi and Ramsey spectroscopy

A cavity-stabilized 578 nm laser is used to probe the clock transition of ytterbium atoms trapped in optical lattice sites.We obtain a Fourier-limited 4.2-Hz-linewidth Rabi spectrum and a Ramsey spectrum with fringe linewidth of 3.3 Hz.Based on one of the spectra,the 578 nm laser light is frequency-stabilized to the center of the transition to achieve a closed-loop operation of an optical clock.Based on interleaved measurement,the frequency instability of a single optical clock is demonstrated to be 5.4×10-16/pτ.

The intensity distribution and thermal stability of InnoSlab laser

Partially end-pumped slab laser is an innovative solid state laser, namely InnoSlab. Combining the hybrid resonator with partially end-pumping, the output power can be scaled with high beam quality. In this paper, the output intensity distributions are simulated by coordinate transformation fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm, comparing the thermal lens influence. As the simulated curves showed, the output mode is still good when the thermal lens effect is strong, indicating the good thermal stability of InnoSlab laser. Such a new kind of laser can be designed and optimized on the base of this simulation.