Optical System for Precision Atomic Clocks and Stable Oscillators

ABSTRACT:Ultra-stable and accurate frequency and timing devices such as atomic clocks are essential for modern communication, navigation, surveillance, and missile guidance systems. There are many atomic oscillators such as neutral calcium and neutral ytterbium that produce clock signal in optical domain. However, these optical standards are expensive and not widely available. The phase stabilized frequency comb can measure optical frequency eight orders of magnitude better than the best commercially available systems previously approached with RF and microwave electronics.In this project, NP Photonics will develop a compact and rugged phase stabilized frequency comb optical system for precision atomic clocks and stable oscillators. NP Photonics specializes in highly doped, high gain per unit length specialty fibers that allows the tailoring of optical gain, nonlinear response, and group-velocity dispersion of the active medium. These fibers enable a simple, compact, robust, cost efficient and ultimately integration-compatible approach to develop high repetition rate (~500 MHz) fundamentally mode-locked Er/Yb-doped fiber lasers and ultralow noise single frequency laser for clock applications. NP Photonics is uniquely positioned to execute on these project goals having already achievedfundamentally mode-locked lasers with GHz repetition rates, and ultra-narrow linewidth (< 400 Hz) single frequency lasers in a space-qualified platform.BENEFIT:Low-noise and very compact footprint microwave oscillators based on phase coherent division of the optical signal are critical building blocks for numerous applications such as high bandwidth precise timing distribution and synchronization, novel imaging techniques, precision metrology and spectroscopy, radar system. Femtosecond laser frequency comb itself can be used for frequency metrology, optical arbitrary waveform generation, high-speed optical sampling, and the calibration of astrophysical spectrographs.