LASER BASED FREQUENCY STANDARDS AND THEIR APPLICATIONS

• US 20110134943A1
• Filed: 02/16/2011
• Published: 06/09/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/17/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: IMRA America Incorporated (Aisin Corp.)
• Original Assignee: IMRA America Incorporated (Aisin Corp.)
• Inventors: FERMANN, Martin, HARTL, Ingmar
• Granted Patent: US 8,165,440 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 fiber link for the transmission or distribution of frequency and time standards, comprising:

a frequency comb source, said comb source generating a frequency comb signal with encoded timing and wavelength information; and

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

wherein said carrier envelope stabilized lasers are configured to regenerate said frequency comb signal with at least one of said encoded timing or wavelength information.

2. The fiber link according to claim 1, said path-length control comprising electronic feedback loops.

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

a modelocked fiber laser;

a multi-core fiber amplifier comprising an array of individual fiber amplifiers arranged so as to amplify an output of said mode locked fiber laser, said individual amplifiers being configured to produce said individual outputs;

at least one phase sensor to detect the phase of outputs of said individual amplifiers; and

at least one phase stabilizer to stabilize the phase of 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.

4. The source of phase-stable optical pulses comprising an array of individual outputs according to claim 3, wherein a relative phase of said individual outputs being controlled to smaller than 0.1 rad.

5. The source of phase-stable optical pulses according to claim 3, 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.