Robust Frequency Combs and Lasers for Optical Clocks and Sensing

Optical frequency combs are the key enabling technology that enabled the immense fractional stability of highly-stabilized lasers in the optical regime to be transferred to the RF domain and thus ushered in new generation of optical atomic clock with orders of magnitude improved stability over their RF atomic clock predecessors. Frequency combs have also found applications in spectroscopy, LIDAR, arbitrary waveform generation, and stable microwave oscillators. In Phase 1 Vescent will design, fabricate, and test a polarization maintaining fiber frequency comb useful for frequency stability transfer from the optical domain to the RF domain. Vescent will design and fabricate a fiber-coupled semiconductor saturable absorbing mirror with actuator to control the comb repetition rate. In Phase II Vescent will develop compact diode lasers that will conveniently phase lock to a comb tooth for the purpose of stabilizing a comb tooth or the laser diode.