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Chinese Optics Letters

Widely tunable laser frequency offset locking to the atomic resonance line with frequency modulation spectroscopy

Anqi Wang Anqi Wang, Zhixin Meng, Yanying Feng Yanying Feng

Published Jan 1, 2018• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A simple and robust technique is reported to offset lock a single semiconductor laser to the atom resonance line with a frequency difference easily adjustable from a few tens of megahertz up to tens of gigahertz. The proposed scheme makes use of the frequency modulation spectroscopy by modulating sidebands of a fiber electro-optic modulator output. The short-term performances of a frequency offset locked semiconductor laser are experimentally demonstrated with the Allan variance of around 3.9×10?11 at a 2 s integration time. This method may have many applications, such as in Raman optics for an atom interferometer.

DOI
10.3788/col201816.050201

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A simple and robust technique is reported to offset lock a single semiconductor laser to the atom resonance line with a frequency difference easily adjustable from a few tens of megahertz up to tens of gigahertz. The proposed scheme makes use of the frequency modulation spectroscopy by modulating sidebands of a fiber electro-optic modulator output. The short-term performances of a frequency offset locked semiconductor laser are experimentally demonstrated with the Allan variance of around 3.9×10?11 at a 2 s integration time. This method may have many applications, such as in Raman optics for an atom interferometer.
In this Letter, we present a widely tunable laser frequency offset locking technique based on four-wave mixing (FWM). The Raman-amplified probe light and newly generated conjugate light exhibit high signal amplitude and ultra-narrow spectral characteristics, which contribute to robust laser frequency stabilization. The laser frequency can be selectively locked to the Stokes or anti-Stokes frequency of the four-wave mixing spectrum, maintaining a fixed frequency difference relative to the pump light that corresponds to the atomic ground state hyperfine splitting. By adjusting the detuning of the pump light frequency, a wide tuning range of several GHz can be achieved. Compared to the frequency modulation spectroscopy method, the modulation transfer technique in a double-lambda atomic system provides an atomic coherence-enhanced error signal with a larger peak-to-peak amplitude and a steeper zero-crossing gradient, resulting in significantly improved laser frequency stabilization performance. This method can enhance the performance of atomic sensors, such as improving the stability of the Raman light for atomic interferometers and increasing the laser stability of highly sensitive atomic magnetometers.
We demonstrate a straightforward frequency-locking technique that employs external modulation saturation absorption spectroscopy to achieve a high-performance 780 nm laser system. By externally modulating the laser frequency through a fiber electro-optic modulator, this scheme can stabilize multiple transitions of the 87Rb D2 line with excellent performance. Experimental results establish fractional frequency instability of 2.21 × 10-13 at 1 s with a linewidth of 1.46 kHz for the cycling transition 5S1/2(Fg = 2) → 5P3/2(Fe = 3). Notably, we have locked the system to the repumping transition 5S1/2(Fg = 1) → 5P3/2(Fe = 2), achieving a record-low instability of 1.98 × 10-12 at 1 s averaging time. This simplified laser system, featuring exceptional short-term frequency stability and multi-frequency locking capability, serves as a critical subsystem for the compact cold-atom optical clock, enabling advanced precision metrology applications. Furthermore, its metrological performance enables immediate applications in other quantum sensors, such as Rydberg electrometry, atomic magnetometry, and matter-wave interferometry.
We present a standalone frequency-offset locking system for controlling narrow-linewidth lasers using off-the-shelf electronic components. We lock two frequency-doubled 1560 nm lasers to a stable primary laser operating at 780 nm via their optical beat note. This radio-frequency beat note is fed through a broadband variable divider, a frequency-to-voltage converter, and a proportional-integrator controller to lock each follower laser to a tunable offset frequency relative to the primary. This architecture provides a large capture range (>1> 1>1 GHz), fast response times (<1< 1<1 ms), and high linearity. We achieve a frequency resolution of 1.9 kHz and a short-term fractional frequency instability 10−11/τ(s)10^{-11}/\sqrt{τ\rm (s)}10−11/τ(s)​ at 780 nm without the need for a dedicated, precise clock reference. We perform high-resolution spectroscopy of cold 87^{87}87Rb atoms to demonstrate the tunability and precision of our locking system. We designed the system to be modular and extensible, making it applicable to a wide variety of atomic physics experiments, including laser cooling, spectroscopy, and quantum sensing with atoms, ions, and molecules.
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.
Two phase-coherent Raman laser beams with a frequency offset of 6.835 GHz were generated by sideband injection-locking technique. A master diode laser was phase-modulated at 6.835 GHz by a fiber electro-optic modulator. A slave diode was injection-locked to the -1 sideband of the phase-modulated beam, and another diode was locked to the master laser carrier. This method produced stable and spatially separated Raman lasers with a large frequency shift range (>180 MHz). The relative linewidth of these two beams was ∼1 Hz, and the unwanted carrier mode was suppressed down to -24 dB. Stimulated Raman transitions and Ramsey fringes were driven by Raman lasers in a cold atomic beam.
We demonstrate frequency offset locking between two laser sources using a waveguide-type electro-optic modulator (EOM) with 10th-order sidebands for magneto-optical trapping of Fr atoms. The frequency locking error signal was successfully obtained by performing delayed self-homodyne detection of the beat signal between the repumping frequency and the 10th-order sideband component of the trapping light. Sweeping the trapping-light and repumping-light frequencies with keeping its frequency difference of 46 GHz was confirmed over 1 GHz by monitoring the Doppler absorption profile of I₂. This technique enables us to search for a resonance frequency of magneto-optical trapping of Fr.