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Analysis of frequency noise in ultra-stable optical oscillators with active control of residual amplitude modulation

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Abstract

Two 1,064-nm Nd:YAG lasers frequency stabilized by high-finesse optical cavities are developed to investigate various noise mechanisms in ultra-stable optical oscillators. Active control of residual amplitude modulation using a separate sensing path is implemented and its effectiveness in the presence of a resonant optical cavity is theoretically analyzed and experimentally verified by measuring the rejection ratios in optical heterodyne beat between a perturbed laser and a stable reference. Laser frequency noises originated from vibration, residual amplitude modulation, quantum-limited shot noise, and electronic noise are experimentally analyzed. With active control, residual amplitude modulation is suppressed to below 1 × 10−6 at 0.02–1,000 s, reaching a minimum of 2 × 10−7 at ~2 s. A frequency stability of 2 × 10−15 is obtained from 0.1 to 10 s, and the optical heterodyne beat of the two Nd:YAG lasers shows 1-Hz linewidth with a measurement time of 4.096 s. In addition, the experimentally determined linewidths agree well with the calculation according to a simplified relationship between the linewidth and the underlying flicker noise that modulates the laser frequency.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Erjun Zang, Jianping Cao, and Ye Li at National Institute of Metrology for their development of the two Nd:YAG lasers. This work is supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2012CB821303), the National Science Foundation (Grant Nos. 11235004 and 11327407), and the Instrument Developing Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant Nos. Y20638 and YG2010068).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430071, China

    Liufeng Li, Hui Shen, Jin Bi, Chun Wang, Shasha Lv & Lisheng Chen

  2. State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, Wuhan, 430071, China

    Liufeng Li & Lisheng Chen

  3. Laboratory of Atomic Frequency Standards, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430071, China

    Liufeng Li & Lisheng Chen

  4. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Hui Shen, Jin Bi, Chun Wang, Shasha Lv & Lisheng Chen

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  1. Liufeng Li
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Correspondence to Lisheng Chen.

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Li, L., Shen, H., Bi, J. et al. Analysis of frequency noise in ultra-stable optical oscillators with active control of residual amplitude modulation. Appl. Phys. B 117, 1025–1033 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-014-5923-x

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