Hamburg 2009 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 53: Ultrakurze Pulse: Anwendungen III
Q 53.4: Vortrag
Donnerstag, 5. März 2009, 17:15–17:30, VMP 6 HS-A
Self-referencing of optical frequency combs — •C. Grebing, S. Koke, and G. Steinmeyer — Max Born Institute, Berlin, Germany
Stabilization of the carrier-envelope phase (CEP) drift of femtosecond oscillators has found widespread application in frequency metrology and high-field nonlinear optics. To date, stabilization of laser oscillators exclusively relies on phase coherent locking of the measured carrier-envelope frequency fCE to a reference [1]. Such locking always requires feedback into the laser, which, however, causes detrimental side effects on other laser parameter and requires complex locking electronics. Additionally, using the traditional stabilization sheme it is impossible to produce a pulse train with constant CEP (fCE=0), which would greatly simplify the set-up of CEP stable amplified systems. We propose and demonstrate a novel technique that allows for intrinsic stabilization of an optical frequency comb to zero offset. Our scheme does neither require any sophisticated servo electronics nor any feedback to the laser. It relies on splitting the output beam of a femtosecond oscillator by means of an acousto-optic frequency shifter (AOFS), with the zero-order signal being fed into an f-to-2f interferometer. This interferometer serves to measure the fCE, which is electronically filtered out and directly fed into the piezoelectric transducer of the AOFS. Doing so, the AOFS output in the first diffraction order experiences a shift by exactly fCE, i.e., it is shifted to a constant CEP. Our method is readily applicable to any type of mode-locked laser, with the measurability of fCE being the only prerequisite.
A. Poppe, et al., Appl. Phys. B 72, 373 (2001).