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Applied Physics Letters

A stable frequency comb directly referenced to rubidium electromagnetically induced transparency and two-photon transitions

Dong Hou, Jiutao Wu, Shuangyou Zhang, Quansheng Ren, Zhigang Zhang, Jianye Zhao

Published Mar 17, 2014• 17 citations

Abstract

We demonstrate an approach to create a stable erbium-fiber-based frequency comb at communication band by directly locking the combs to two rubidium atomic transitions resonances (electromagnetically induced transparency absorption and two-photon absorption), respectively. This approach directly transfers the precision and stability of the atomic transitions to the comb. With its distinguishing feature of compactness by removing the conventional octave-spanning spectrum and f-to-2f beating facilities and the ability to directly control the comb's frequency at the atomic transition frequency, this stable optical comb can be widely used in optical communication, frequency standard, and optical spectroscopy and microscopy.

DOI: 10.1063/1.4869025

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We demonstrate an approach to create a stable erbium-fiber-based frequency comb at communication band by directly locking the combs to two rubidium atomic transitions resonances (electromagnetically induced transparency absorption and two-photon absorption), respectively. This approach directly transfers the precision and stability of the atomic transitions to the comb. With its distinguishing feature of compactness by removing the conventional octave-spanning spectrum and f-to-2f beating facilities and the ability to directly control the comb's frequency at the atomic transition frequency, this stable optical comb can be widely used in optical communication, frequency standard, and optical spectroscopy and microscopy.

We present the observation of the Rb two-photon spectrum directly excited by an Er:fiber laser comb in a hot atomic vapor system. The influences of the atomic velocity distribution on direct and sequential two-photon transitions are discussed respectively and a combination of corresponding spectral control techniques is developed to eliminate the Doppler broadening background. A direct frequency comb spectroscopy is obtained with high-resolution two-photon transition lines. These techniques would benefit spectroscopy measurement in hot atomic vapor systems, and pave the way for establishing a high-stability optical frequency comb in 1.5 $\ensuremath{\mu}$m optical communication bands based on the Rb two-photon transitions.

We demonstrate the direct frequency comb spectroscopy of Rb 5S→5D two-photon transitions directly excited by an optical frequency comb (OFC) in 1.5 μm fiber communication bands. A chain of comb spectral manipulation and quantum coherence control is implemented to enhance the efficiency of second harmonic OFC generation and eliminate the Doppler-broadening background. The direct frequency comb spectroscopy with clearly resolved transition lines is obtained. Our scheme provides a potential approach to realize the OFC at ~1.5 μm with high stability and accuracy.

A compact rubidium optical clock is presented, incorporating an optical frequency standard, a fiber frequency comb, and associated control electronics. Modulation transfer spectroscopy, devoid of Doppler background and characterized by a high signal-to-noise ratio and sensitivity, is employed to lock the laser frequency to the hyperfine transitions of rubidium atomic lines. The clock exhibits a short-term stability of 4.10 × 10-13at a 1-second gate time, and the stability remains below 7.27 × 10-13up to 1000 seconds. These results offer a promising alternative approach for the development of portable optical clocks.

Optical frequency standards surpass their microwave counterparts in both stability and accuracy, yet they are often bulky, power-hungry, and unable to operate outside of a well-controlled laboratory environment. Leveraging a two-photon transition in

{}^{87}

Rb vapor and recent advances in fiber frequency combs, the authors build an optical clock to beat the current portable standards, with an architecture that can be made compact and low-power. These results point the way to a real-world optical frequency standard of even higher stability, for applications such as satellite navigation.

We propose to utilize an Er-doped fiber laser locked to a cooled Rb two-photon transition (TPT) resonance as a frequency standard for fiber-based optical communication. We show experimentally that a continuous wave laser beam can enhance the strength of cooled Rb TPT as much as 2.5 times. The cooled Rb TPT resonance excited by the fiber frequency combs has a measured linewidth of about 900 kHz. After locking the repetition rate of the fiber laser to the cooled Rb TPT resonance, the stability reaches 1.5×10−13 with 100 s averaging time. The results demonstrate that the proposed method in this paper is promising to provide the radio frequency standard for fiber-based optical communication.