Réseaux de liens fibrés en métrologie pour la dissemination de fréquence : étude, exploitation, et sensibilités à l'effet Sagnac et autres perturbations terrestres
Atomic clocks are the modern tools of timekeeping. Ever since the redefinition of the second in 1967 based on an atomic transition of Cesium 133, the atomic clocks have improved drastically. This has lead to many technological advancements the last 55 years, many of which require precise transfer of time and frequency signals, a prominent example being the Global Positioning System (GPS). With the recent advancements of the last generation of state-of-the-art atomic clocks, so called optical clocks, traditional means of disseminating their signals without degrading their performance are no longer adequate. The implementation of a new technology for such purposes has in recent years been implemented in several countries around the world, which utilizes optical fibers as a medium to transfer and compare the signals of the atomic frequency references.In this thesis, I discuss the exploitation of such an optical fiber network in France. I discuss the general noise processes of such fiber links, and their technical and fundamental limits. In-depth studies of several applications of a fiber network is presented. These include the evaluation of the uncertainty contribution of the French fiber network to the comparison of optical clocks. I also show studies of the use of fiber networks for the sensing of effects arising from the Earth. This includes the sensing of the Sagnac effect in a fiber link deployed in a ring topology around Paris, a study of the detection of earthquakes with the French fiber network, and a discussion of the prospects of the use of such a technology.
Atomic clocks are the modern tools of timekeeping. Ever since the redefinition of the second in 1967 based on an atomic transition of Cesium 133, the atomic clocks have improved drastically. This has lead to many technological advancements the last 55 years, many of which require precise transfer of time and frequency signals, a prominent example being the Global Positioning System (GPS). With the recent advancements of the last generation of state-of-the-art atomic clocks, so called optical clocks, traditional means of disseminating their signals without degrading their performance are no longer adequate. The implementation of a new technology for such purposes has in recent years been implemented in several countries around the world, which utilizes optical fibers as a medium to transfer and compare the signals of the atomic frequency references.In this thesis, I discuss the exploitation of such an optical fiber network in France. I discuss the general noise processes of such fiber links, and their technical and fundamental limits. In-depth studies of several applications of a fiber network is presented. These include the evaluation of the uncertainty contribution of the French fiber network to the comparison of optical clocks. I also show studies of the use of fiber networks for the sensing of effects arising from the Earth. This includes the sensing of the Sagnac effect in a fiber link deployed in a ring topology around Paris, a study of the detection of earthquakes with the French fiber network, and a discussion of the prospects of the use of such a technology.
The transfer of ultra-stable frequencies between distant laboratories is required by many applications from fundamental metrology to high-precision measurements. For that purpose, optical fibre links have been intensively studied over the last decade. They have demonstrated impressive results far beyond the GPS capabilities on distances up to 2000 km, thanks to an active compensation of the fiber propagation noise.Up to now, optical links has been mainly implemented between two labs, when future applications will require the development of metrological fiber networks. Towards this goal, we have developed a few techniques which allow us to distribute the ultrastable optical signal to many users simultaneously. We have designed repeater laser stations, which can be used to build a cascaded link or to distribute the ultrastable signal among two optical links [1]. These stations allow us also to compare the output end signals of two optical links. These versatile stations will be a key-component of the national metrological network currently being developed in France within the Refimeve+ project. To complete the network, we have demonstrated the extraction of the ultrastable signal from a main link and its seeding to a secondary link [2].Optical links are already been successfully used for clocks comparison. Recently we were able to compare the atomic clocks of the French and German National Metrology Institutes through two connected optical links of total length 1415-km [3]. We found that the two fully independent Sr lattice optical clocks at the two sites agreed to better than 5x10-17 limited only by the clocks uncertainties. A fractional statistical uncertainty of 3x10-17 was reached after only 1000 s averaging time, which is 10 times better, and more than four orders of magnitude faster than with any other existing frequency transfer method. The atomic fountain primary frequency standards from the two institutes were also compared and they were found to agree well within their combined uncertainties of a few 10-16 [4].
Réseaux de liens fibrés en métrologie pour la dissemination de fréquence : étude, exploitation, et sensibilités à l'effet Sagnac et autres perturbations terrestres Les horloges atomiques sont les outils modernes de la mesure du temps. Depuis la redéfinition de la seconde en 1967 fondée sur l'interrogation d'une transition atomique du Césium 133, les horloges atomiques se sont considérablement améliorées. Cela a conduit à de nombreuses avancées technologiques au cours des 55 dernières années, dont beaucoup nécessitent un transfert précis des signaux de temps et de fréquence, un exemple important étant le système de positionnement global (GPS). Avec les récents progrès des horloges atomiques de dernière génération, dites optique, les moyens traditionnels de diffusion des signaux d'horloge(s) ne sont plus adaptés si on n'accepte pas de ne pas dégrader leurs performances. La mise en œuvre d'une nouvelle technologie a été développée à cette fin dans plusieurs pays du monde ces dernières années. Elle utilise les fibres optiques comme support pour transférer et comparer les signaux des références de fréquence atomique. Dans cette thèse, j'aborderai la mise en œuvre d'un réseau de fibres optiques en France. Je discuterai des processus généraux de bruit de ces liaisons par fibre optique, et de leurs limites techniques et fondamentales. Des études approfondies de plusieurs applications d'un réseau de fibres sont présentées. Celles-ci incluent l'évaluation de la contribution de l'incertitude du réseau français de fibres optiques à la comparaison des horloges optiques. Ensuite, je présenterai une études sur l'utilisation de réseaux de fibres pour la détection de phénomènes géophysiques. Cela inclut la détection de l'effet Sagnac dans un lien à fibre déployé dans une topologie en anneau autour de Paris. Ensuite, je montrerai une étude de la détection des tremblements de terre avec le réseau de fibres français, et je discuterai des perspectives d'utilisation d'une telle technologie.
This thesis describes the realization of a facility for the high-accuracy frequency dissemination on a continental scale. This project was developed at the Optics division of the Italian National Metrology Institute (INRIM), which is in charge of the realization and operation of the atomic primary frequency standards, of their dissemination, and cooperates to the International Atomic Time generation. Frequency dissemination is now based on satellite techniques; however, the resolution provided by these methods does not cope with the accuracy and stability of newgeneration frequency standards. For instance, more than 10 days of measurement are needed to effectively compare primary standards, and years would be necessary to compare optical clocks via satellite links. On the other hand, it has been demonstrated that systems based on optical fibers can improve the resolution by about 5 orders of magnitude with respect to satellite techniques. This is the reason why many national metrology institutes in Europe are cooperating to develop a network for frequency dissemination and clocks comparisons all across the continent. This technique is based on the transmission of a narrow-linewidth laser along a standard telecom fiber. At the metrological laboratory, the frequency is measured with respect to a frequency standard, while at the remote link end it is extracted and used as a frequency reference. However, temperature changes, acoustic noise, air flows can degrade the stability of the delivered frequency, and must therefore be compensated. This is done through a Doppler cancellation technique, in which the light travels twice in the optical fiber in opposite directions. This is different from what happens in telecom links, which are inherently bidirectional. Dedicated instruments have therefore been developed. This thesis describes the realization of a phase-stabilized optical link between INRIM and the European Laboratory for Non Linear Spectroscopy in Florence, where an optical clock based on Sr atoms was under development at the time of measurements. This clock has been compared to the INRIM primary standard via the optical link. I worked on the realization of the ultrastable laser sources, on the development and characterization of the optical and electronics apparatus, and at the development of the metrological chain for the remote clocks comparison. This thesis also describes some novel techniques which we investigated in the framework of this project, and new applications of optical fiber links. During my studies I spent two months at the Laboratoire National d'Essais-Systemes de Référence Temps-Espace (LNE-SYRTE) in Paris, where I cooperated to the realization of an ultrastable laser source based on an optical delay line. This is reported in the thesis as well
In recent years, the use of optical frequency dissemination through telecommunication fibers has steadily grown both in the context of stateof-the-art metrology like optical clocks and in the use of ultrastable reference signals for precision measurements in other fields of physics or earth science.Evaluating the performance of the fiber link can be difficult, as outliers and dysfunctioning regions lead to missing data.In this article, we discuss these challenges and investigate three different approaches to dealing with the missing data of a 1410-km-long optical link.We find a benefit in replacing the missing data with simulated noise with a statistical behavior similar to that of the original signal.
The dissemination of atomic clocks with fiber-based techniques finds application in the fields of metrology, fundamental physics, navigation, and spectroscopy but is a challenge in terms of reliability, maintenance, and performance. Here, we describe the realization of a 1023-km-long fiber link between the metrological institutes of Italy and France that shares the infrastructure with the Internet traffic and exploits segmentation in shorter, cascaded spans to fight optical losses exceeding 280 dB. With four months of quasicontinuous operation of this link, we compared the Cs, Rb, and Yb atomic clocks at our laboratories, highlighting the potential of this tool to assess the clock uncertainty budgets, characterize advanced satellite techniques, and develop optical timescales. The integration of the metrological, fiber-based infrastructures in the two countries, connecting photonics and spectroscopy laboratories as well as telescope facilities, provides the research community with a physical layer over which applications can be built on.
Leveraging the unrivalled performance of optical clocks as key tools for geo-science, for astronomy and for fundamental physics beyond the standard model requires comparing the frequency of distant optical clocks faithfully. Here, we report on the comparison and agreement of two strontium optical clocks at an uncertainty of 5 × 10(-17) via a newly established phase-coherent frequency link connecting Paris and Braunschweig using 1,415 km of telecom fibre. The remote comparison is limited only by the instability and uncertainty of the strontium lattice clocks themselves, with negligible contributions from the optical frequency transfer. A fractional precision of 3 × 10(-17) is reached after only 1,000 s averaging time, which is already 10 times better and more than four orders of magnitude faster than any previous long-distance clock comparison. The capability of performing high resolution international clock comparisons paves the way for a redefinition of the unit of time and an all-optical dissemination of the SI-second.