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arXiv:1404.6021

Lasing and suppressed cavity-pulling effect of Cesium active optical clock

Zhichao Xu, Wei Zhuang, Jingbiao Chen

Published Apr 24, 2014• 5 citations
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Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate the collective emission behavior and suppressed cavity-pulling effect of four-level active optical clock with Cesium atoms. Thermal Cesium atoms in a glass cell velocity selective pumped with a 455.5 nm laser operating at 6S$_{1/2}$ to 7P$_{3/2}$ transition are used as lasing medium. Population inverted Cesium atoms between 7S$_{1/2}$ and 6P$_{3/2}$ levels are optical weakly coupled by a pair cavity mirrors working at deep bad-cavity regime with a finesse of 4.3, and the ratio between cavity bandwidth and gain bandwidth is approximately 45. With increased 455.5 nm pumping laser intensity, the output power of cesium active optical clock at 1469.9 nm from 7S$_{1/2}$ level to 6P$_{3/2}$ level shows a threshold and reach a power of 13 $μ$W. Active optical clock would dramatically improve the optical clock stability since the lasing frequency does not follow the cavity length variation exactly, but in a form of suppressed cavity pulling effect. In this letter the cavity pulling effect is measured using a Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) to be reduced by a factor of 38.2 and 41.4 as the detuning between the 1469.9 nm cavity length of the Cs active optical clock and the Cs 1469.9 nm transition is set to be 140.8 MHz and 281.6 MHz respectively. The mechanism demonstrated here is of great significance for new generation optical clocks and can be applied to improve the stability of best optical clocks by at least two orders of magnitude.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1404.6021

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We experimentally demonstrate the collective emission behavior and suppressed cavity-pulling effect of four-level active optical clock with Cesium atoms. Thermal Cesium atoms in a glass cell velocity selective pumped with a 455.5 nm laser operating at 6S1/2_{1/2}1/2​ to 7P3/2_{3/2}3/2​ transition are used as lasing medium. Population inverted Cesium atoms between 7S1/2_{1/2}1/2​ and 6P3/2_{3/2}3/2​ levels are optical weakly coupled by a pair cavity mirrors working at deep bad-cavity regime with a finesse of 4.3, and the ratio between cavity bandwidth and gain bandwidth is approximately 45. With increased 455.5 nm pumping laser intensity, the output power of cesium active optical clock at 1469.9 nm from 7S1/2_{1/2}1/2​ level to 6P3/2_{3/2}3/2​ level shows a threshold and reach a power of 13 μμμW. Active optical clock would dramatically improve the optical clock stability since the lasing frequency does not follow the cavity length variation exactly, but in a form of suppressed cavity pulling effect. In this letter the cavity pulling effect is measured using a Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) to be reduced by a factor of 38.2 and 41.4 as the detuning between the 1469.9 nm cavity length of the Cs active optical clock and the Cs 1469.9 nm transition is set to be 140.8 MHz and 281.6 MHz respectively. The mechanism demonstrated here is of great significance for new generation optical clocks and can be applied to improve the stability of best optical clocks by at least two orders of magnitude.
We realize the lasing of cesium active optical clock with 459 nm laser pumping, which operates deep in the optical bad-cavity regime. The ratio between cavity bandwidth and gain bandwidth is 55.08 theoretically. With 459 nm laser pumping, the population inversion occurs between the cesium 7S1/2state and 6P3/2state, and the stimulated radiation between the two states is realized. The 1469.9 nm output signal of cesium active optical clock can reach a power of 8 μW. The output power also shows a threshold character with pumping laser power and can be influenced by the Cs cell temperature. This active optical clock has an advantage in stability over the conventional optical clocks, due to its suppression of cavity pulling effect, which is also demonstrated experimentally.
We are setting up an experiment to investigate an active optical clock scheme in four-level configuration with Cesium atoms. The 1469 nm Cesium active optical clock output in a bad cavity laser regime is generated and the wavelength is measured to be 1469.500 nm by using spectrometer. The 1469 nm lasing threshold and output power is measured when changing 455 nm pumping laser power and frequency. The 1469 nm Cesium active optical clock output multi-threshold is observed when changing bad-cavity length. We also sweep the bad-cavity length and measure the 1469 nm Cesium active optical clock output frequency using a wavelength meter, proving the cavity-pulling reduction due to the bad-cavity effect.
The active optical clock (AOC) takes advantage of the narrowed linewidth and cavity pulling suppression of the bad cavity laser, making it a candidate for the next generation of optical clock. We propose a new experimental method to measure the cavity-pulling effect of a four-level AOC based on thermal cesium atoms. After modulating the frequency of the 459 nm pumping laser, atoms in different velocity groups are pumped to the 7P1/2energy level. Therefore, population inversion is achieved in separate velocity groups, and sidebands are created in the gain profile. By measuring the central frequency of the beat spectrum between the zeroth order AOC output and the sidebands, the cavity-pulling coefficient can be calculated. This method has the advantage of not requiring any additional optical frequency reference, and can be adopted in AOC systems other than those using thermal atoms. Furthermore, our proposed method for cavity-pulling measurement can serve as a basis for the characterization of AOCs.
We experimentally realize the dual-wavelength active optical clock for the first time. As the Cs cell temperature is kept between 118 ∘C^{\circ }C∘C and 144 ∘C^{\circ }C∘C, both the 1359 nm and the 1470 nm stimulated emission output of Cs four-level active optical clock are detected. The 1470 nm output linewidth of each experimental setup of Cs four-level active optical clock is measured to be 590 Hz with the main cavity length unstabilized. To stabilize the cavity length of active optical clock, the experimental scheme of 633 nm and 1359 nm good-bad cavity dual-wavelength active optical clock is proposed, where 633 nm and 1359 nm stimulated emission is working at good-cavity and bad-cavity regime respectively. The cavity length is stabilized by locking the 633 nm output frequency to a super-cavity with the Pound-Drever-Hall (PDH) technique. The frequency stability of 1359 nm bad-cavity stimulated emission output is then expected to be further improved by at least 1 order of magnitude than the 633 nm PDH system due to the suppressed cavity pulling effect of active optical clock, and the quantum limited linewidth of 1359 nm output is estimated to be 77.6 mHz.
In the bad-cavity limit, the collective atomic dipole is highly coherent, resulting in the phase information of an active optical clock (AOC) laser primarily stored in the atomic gain medium. Therefore, compared with the good-cavity laser, the sensitivity of an AOC laser to cavity fluctuations is greatly reduced, as characterized by the suppressed cavity-pulling effect. In this work, the AOC lasing on the cesium 7S 1/2 -6P 3/2 clock transition with a natural linewidth of 1.81 MHz under a weak magnetic field is achieved. We calculate the Zeeman spectra of upper and lower states of clock transition, and measure the beat-note spectrum between different Zeeman-sublevel transitions of 7S 1/2 -6P 3/2 . Moreover, the cavity-pulling, temperature, power, and linewidth characteristics of the AOC laser are demonstrated under a weak magnetic field. Such an emerging laser can be applied as a narrow-linewidth local oscillator, as well as an active optical frequency standard, which is promising for the field of precision measurement.