A NARROW LINEWIDTH FREQUENCY STABILIZED MICROLASER

FOR ACCURATE REFERENCING OF LASER SOURCES USED FOR ISOTOPE SEPARATION, THE URANIUM-ATOMIC VAPORLASER ISOTOPE SEPARATION (U-AVLIS) PROGRAM REQUIERS NARROW LINEWIDTH WAVELENGTH STANDARDS IN THE VISIBLE-NEAR INFRARED (IR) REGION OF THE SPECTRUM. A NOVEL APPROACH BASED UPON ADVANCED SOLID-STATE MICROLASER TECHNOLOGY IS PLANNED TO SATISY THIS REQUIREMENT. THE DESIGN UTILIZES ADIODE PUMPED ELECTRO-OPTICALLY TUNABLE MONOLITHIC MICROLASER THAT ALLOWS FOR FAST CONTROL OF THE CAVITY RESONANCE FREQUENCY. THUS, THE FREQUENCY CAN BE TUNED/SCANNED BY SIMPLY APPLYING A VOLTAGE TO THE LASER. THIS IS IN CONTRAST TO SLOWER FREQUENCY CONTROL TECHNIQUES WHICH UTILIZEPIEZOELECTRIC OR PUMP POWER MODULATION. THE IR EMISSION OF THE SOURCE IS CONVERTED TO THE VISABLE USING INTRACAVITY NONLINEAR TECHNIQUES IN A DESIGN WHICH AVOIDS INSTABILITIES FROM NONLINEAR MIXING. THE ANTICIPATED PERFORMANCE OF THE SYSTEM RESULTS IN A SOURCE WITH A FREQUENCY STABILITY OF BETTER THAN 2 MHz, WITH A FAST LINEWIDTH OF 10 KHz, THUS MAKING IT IDEALFOR PRECISION INSTRUMENT CALIBRATION. THIS MICROLASER TECHNOLOGY OFFERS THE POTENTIAL FOR EXTREMELY FREQUENCY-STABLE, COMPACT, LOW COST, OSCILLATORSR IN THE VISABLE AND IR REGION. THE UNIQUE TECHNOLOGY REPRESENTS A SUBSTANTIAL IMPROVEMENT OVER CURRENT STATE-OF-THE-ART NONPLANAR MONOLITHIC LASERS. FOR THE ABSOLUTE LONG TERM STABILITY REQUIREMENTS OF U-AVLIS, THE ELECTRO-OPTIC MICROLASER CAN BE REFERENCED TO A MOLECULAR ABSORPTION CELL OR CRYSTAL OSCILLATOR. THE PHASE I PROJECT INCLUDES A SERIES OF RISK REDUCTION EXPERIMENTS DESIGNED TO GENERATE NARROW LINEWIDTH, FREQUENCY STABLE, VISIBLE MICROLASERS. PHASE I WILL DEVELOP A DIODEPUMPED VISIBLE SOURCE IN A MONOLITHIC PACKAGE. CHARACTERIZATION OF THE SOURCE WILL LEAD TO A DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A CLOSED-LOOP FREQUENCY CONTROL SYSTEM REFERENCED TO AN ULTRA-STABLE CAVITY.