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arXiv:1109.0338 · Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Injection-locked diode laser current modulation for Pound-Drever-Hall frequency stabilization using transfer cavities

Chelsea E. Liekhus-Schmaltz, R. Mantifel, Mozhgan Torabifard, Ian B. Burgess, J. D. D. Martin

Published May 22, 2012• 13 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A phase-modulated RF current source is applied to an injection-locked diode laser operating at 780 nm. This produces tunable phase-modulated sidebands of the laser suitable for stabilizing the length of an optical transfer cavity using the Pound-Drever-Hall technique. The Pound-Drever-Hall signal is antisymmetric about the lock point, despite the presence of significant diode laser amplitude modulation. The stabilized optical transfer cavity is used to frequency stabilize a 776 nm external cavity diode laser. The stability and tunability of this transfer cavity locked laser is established by observation of the hyperfine components of the Rb875P3/2−5D5/2 transition in a vapor cell.

DOI
10.1364/josab.29.001394

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中国物理B：英文版•Jan 1, 2014•0 citations
A phase-modulated RF current source is applied to an injection-locked diode laser operating at 780 nm. This produces tunable phase-modulated sidebands of the laser suitable for stabilizing the length of an optical transfer cavity using the Pound-Drever-Hall technique. The Pound-Drever-Hall signal is antisymmetric about the lock point, despite the presence of significant diode laser amplitude modulation. The stabilized optical transfer cavity is used to frequency stabilize a 776 nm external cavity diode laser. The stability and tunability of this transfer cavity locked laser is established by observation of the hyperfine components of the Rb875P3/2−5D5/2 transition in a vapor cell.
A system for exciting Rubidium atoms to Rydberg states has been constructed to study the interactions between them and metal surfaces. This thesis describes a method to reach the f Rydberg series using diode lasers. Since the diode lasers need to be frequency stabilized for this excitation, a transfer cavity stabilization method was implemented using the Pound-Drever-Hall technique. \nTo obtain the necessary frequency modulation the diode laser was current modulated at ∼ 6 MHz. A noise cancellation circuit was used to suppress detection of the accompanying residual intensity modulation.
The Pound--Drever--Hall (PDH) technique is routinely used to stabilize the frequency of a laser to a reference cavity. Electronic sideband (ESB) locking, a PDH variant, bridges the frequency gap between the discrete cavity resonances and a desired laser frequency. Here we use quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), a standard technique in digital communications, to generate the high-quality phase-modulated radio-frequency (rf) drive required for ESB locking. We develop a theoretical framework to analyze how in-phase/quadrature-phase (I/Q) impairments distort the ESB error signal and induce frequency offsets relevant to ultranarrow-linewidth lasers. We then design and implement a direct software-defined radio (SDR) on an UltraScale+ RFSoC platform, frequently adopted across modern quantum-computing systems, to digitally compensate QAM I/Q impairments. Using this device, we generate phase-modulated rf signals with a large phase-modulation index of 1.011.011.01 rad and root-mean-square I/Q errors below 0.3 %0.3\ \%0.3 % over a carrier-frequency range of 350 MHz350~\mathrm{MHz}350 MHz to 1.75 GHz1.75~\mathrm{GHz}1.75 GHz. Finally, we lock a laser to an ultralow expansion (ULE) reference cavity and demonstrate continuous laser-frequency tuning by ramping the carrier frequency while maintaining lock, validating the continuous tunability of our ESB locking instrument.
By optical injection of an 852-nm extended-cavity diode laser (master laser) to lock the + 1-order sideband of a ~9-GHz-current-modulated diode laser (slave laser), we generate a pair of phase-locked lasers with a frequency difference up to ~9-GHz for a cesium (Cs) magneto-optical trap (MOT) with convenient tuning capability. For a cesium MOT, the master laser acts as repumping laser, locked to the Cs 6S₁/₂ (F = 3) - 6P₃/₂ (F' = 4) transition. When the + 1-order sideband of the 8.9536-GHz-current-modulated slave laser is optically injection-locked, the carrier operates on the Cs 6S₁/₂ (F = 4) - 6P₃/₂ (F' = 5) cooling cycle transition with -12 MHz detuning and acts as cooling/trapping laser. When carrying a 9.1926-GHz modulation signal, this phase-locked laser system can be applied in the fields of coherent population trapping and coherent manipulation of Cs atomic ground states.
The stabilizing and shifting of laser frequency are very important for the interaction between the laser and atoms. The modulation transfer spectroscopy for the 87 Rb atom with D2 line transition F = 2 → F′ = 3 is used for stabilizing and shifting the frequency of the external cavity grating feedback diode laser. The resonant phase modulator with electro—optical effect is used to generate frequency sideband to lock the laser frequency. In the locking scheme, circularly polarized pump- and probe-beams are used. By optimizing the temperature of the vapor, the pump- and probe-beam intensity, the laser linewidth of 280 kHz is obtained. Furthermore, the magnetic field generated by a solenoid is added into the system. Therefore the system can achieve the frequency locking at any point in a range of hundreds of megahertz frequency shifting with very low power loss.
This project sets out to frequency stabilize external cavity diode lasers of wavelengths λ = 935 nm and 739 nm, with an eye to Ytterbium-171 ion trapping.The desired laser linewidths were below 1 MHz at 1 second observation time and the desired long term frequency drifts were below a megahertz over the course of a few hours.To stabilize the lasers, two Pound-Drever-Hall laser frequency stabilisation systems were designed, constructed and characterized.The optical frequency references used were sub-megahertz linewidth optical cavities with Invar spacers.These cavities were designed and constructed inhouse.The achieved long term stability of the stabilized lasers was 1 MHz/h over a 5 hour measurement period.The laser frequency long term stabilities are limited by the thermal stabilities of the cavity spacers.The post stabilisation laser frequency noise was lowered when compared to the free running lasers.This was observed by determining the laser frequency noise power spectral densities.From the frequency noise power spectral densities lower bounds on the locked laser linewidths were established.This lower bound is 11.92 kHz for the 739 nm wavelength laser at 1 second observation time and 5.4 kHz for the 935 nm wavelength laser.An additional system was designed and constructed ii
The stabilizing and shifting of laser frequency are very important for the interaction between the laser and atoms. The modulation transfer spectroscopy for the87 Rb atom with D2 line transition F = 2 → F = 3 is used for stabilizing and shifting the frequency of the external cavity grating feedback diode laser. The resonant phase modulator with electro–optical effect is used to generate frequency sideband to lock the laser frequency. In the locking scheme, circularly polarized pump- and probe-beams are used. By optimizing the temperature of the vapor, the pump- and probe-beam intensity, the laser linewidth of 280 kHz is obtained. Furthermore, the magnetic field generated by a solenoid is added into the system. Therefore the system can achieve the frequency locking at any point in a range of hundreds of megahertz frequency shifting with very low power loss.