LASER BASED FREQUENCY STANDARDS AND THEIR APPLICATIONS

• US 20100265972A1
• Filed: 06/29/2010
• Published: 10/21/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/17/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: IMRA America Incorporated (Aisin Corp.)
• Original Assignee: IMRA America Incorporated (Aisin Corp.)
• Inventors: HARTL, Ingmar, FERMANN, Martin E.
• Granted Patent: US 8,170,387 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 372/18
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 1/3528 for producing a supercontinuum
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 1/3558 Poled materials, e.g. with periodic poling; Fabrication of domain inverted structures, e.g. for quasi-phase-matching [QPM]
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 1/365 in an optical waveguide structure G02F1/377, G02F1/395 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G02F 2203/56 Frequency comb synthesizer
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 2301/02 ASE (amplified spontaneous emission), noise; Reduction thereof
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 3/067 Fibre lasers
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 3/06716 Fibre compositions per se C03C13/04or doping with active elements lasing materials in general H01S3/14
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 3/1112 Passive mode locking

Abstract

Frequency standards based on mode-locked fiber lasers, fiber amplifiers and fiber-based ultra-broad bandwidth light sources, and applications of the same.

Claims

1. A modelocked fiber laser, producing pulses with a peak pulse power,

said modelocked fiber laser configured to provide an output of equidistant optical pulses at a certain repetition frequency, said modelocked fiber laser further including a phase adjuster controlling the absolute phase of said optical pulses, said repetition frequency and said pulse phase further being matched to an external cavity, such that the pulse peak power within the boundaries of said external cavity is substantially higher compared to the pulse peak power provided by said modelocked fiber laser.

2. A modelocked fiber laser according to claim 1, said modelocked fiber laser further being amplified in a chirped pulse amplification system.

3. A modelocked fiber laser according to claim 1, said absolute phase control being adjustable to produce an individual laser comb linewidth which is smaller than the linewidth of the individual comb lines comprising the frequency comb spectrum of the enhancement cavity, and wherein the fiber laser frequency comb is adjusted to overlap with the frequency comb spectrum of the enhancement cavity, and wherein the comb spacing of the fiber laser comb spectrum is adjusted to be equal to the comb spacing of the comb spectrum of the enhancement cavity.

4. A laser system according to claim 2, where said laser system is further used to generate VUV, EUV and THz radiation in said enhancement cavity via the insertion of a nonlinear material into said enhancement cavity.

5. A laser system according to claim 2, where said nonlinear material is a gas, a liquid or a solid.

13. A laser system according to claim 2, where said nonlinear material is used as a parametric amplifier.

6. A source of phase stable optical pulses, comprising:

a modelocked fiber laser,

an output of said modelocked fiber laser being amplified in a fiber amplifier;

a stable phase being obtained at the output of said fiber amplifier.

7. A fiber link for the transmission or distribution of frequency and time standards comprising

a frequency comb source,

an array of carrier envelope stabilized lasers, separated by path-length controlled fiber transmission lines.

8. A fiber link according to claim 7,

said path-length control comprising electronic feedback loops.

9. A source of phase-stable optical pulses,comprising;

an array of individual outputs;

said outputs configured to tile a plane,

a modelocked fiber laser,

said modelocked fiber laser being amplified in an array of individual fiber amplifiers;

said individual amplifiers being configured to produce said individual outputs;

a phase stabilizer for said individual amplifiers

said stable phase being obtained at the output of said fiber amplifier array,

said stable phase being characterized in that the relative phase fluctuations between individual amplifiers is smaller than 1 rad.

10. A source of phase-stable optical pulses comprising an array of individual outputs according to claim 9, wherein a relative phase of said individual outputs being controlled to smaller than 0.1 rad.

11. A source of phase-stable optical pulses according to claim 9, wherein

said individual amplifiers are constructed from multi-core fibers.

12. A source of phase-stable optical pulses according to claim 9, further comprising individual phase-adjusters operating on all but one of said individual amplifiers and an electronic control loop to lock the phase of said all but one individual amplifiers to the remaining individual amplifier, which is used as a reference for the electronic control loop.