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Optics Continuum

Laser frequency stabilization to water vapor for trapped ion quantum technology

Steven Olmschenk

Published Aug 25, 2026• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We stabilize the frequency of a diode laser operating near 1389.8 nm to an absorption line in water vapor. We measure the Allan deviation of the system to be 1.8 × 10 −10 at a 20-minute averaging time. The beatnote between two nearly identical systems deviates by <±1.6 MHz over 15.5 hours. The all-fiber optical setup may facilitate compact and alignment-free laser systems for field-deployable trapped ion quantum technology.

DOI
10.1364/optcon.603828

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We stabilize the frequency of a diode laser operating near 1389.8 nm to an absorption line in water vapor. We measure the Allan deviation of the system to be 1.8 × 10 −10 at a 20-minute averaging time. The beatnote between two nearly identical systems deviates by <±1.6 MHz over 15.5 hours. The all-fiber optical setup may facilitate compact and alignment-free laser systems for field-deployable trapped ion quantum technology.
Abstract We achieve a compact ultra-stable 420 nm blue diode laser system by immediately stabilizing the laser on the hyperfine transition line of Rb atom. The Allan deviation of the residual error signal reaches 1 Hz-level Allan deviation within 1 s averaging time, and the fractional frequency Allan deviation is 1.4×10−15/τ1.4\times 10^{-15}/\sqrt{\tau }1.4×10−15/τ​ 1.4 × 10 - 15 / τ , which shows the best result of frequency-stabilized lasers based on the atomic spectroscopy without Pound–Drever–Hall (PDH) system. The signal-to-noise ratio of the atomic spectroscopy is evaluated to be 3,000,000 from the Allan deviation formula, which is the highest record, to the best of our knowledge. The frequency noise suppression characterization is demonstrated and the maximal noise suppression can be near 40 dB at 6 Hz. As a good candidate of pumping source, the ultra-stable 420 nm diode laser is successfully used in our Rb four-level active optical frequency standard system. The method can be easily extended to other wavelengths ultra-stable lasers with a Allan deviation of 10−1510^{-15}10−15 10 - 15 level retaining an atomic reference with low cost and low complexity while in the absence of an expensive and complicated PDH system.
We demonstrate stabilization of an ultraviolet diode laser via Doppler-free spectroscopy of Ytterbium ions in a discharge. Our technique employs polarization spectroscopy, which produces a natural dispersive lineshape whose zero-crossing is largely immune to environmental drifts, making this signal an ideal absolute frequency reference for Yb+ ion trapping experiments. We stabilize an external-cavity diode laser near 369 nm for cooling Yb+ ions, using amplitude modulated polarization spectroscopy and a commercial PID feedback system. We achieve stable, low-drift locking with a standard deviation of measured laser frequency ∼ 400 kHz over 10 minutes, limited by the instantaneous linewidth of the diode laser. These results and the simplicity of our optical setup makes our approach attractive for stabilization of laser sources in atomic physics applications.
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We develop a high-performance ultraviolet (UV) frequency stabilization technique implemented directly on UV diode lasers by combining the dichroic atomic vapor laser lock and the resonant transfer cavity lock. As an example, we demonstrate a stable locking with measured frequency standard deviations of approximately 200 kHz and 300 kHz for 399 nm and 370 nm diode lasers in 20 min. We achieve a long-term frequency drift of no more than 1 MHz for the target 370 nm laser within an hour, which is further verified with fluorescence count rates of a single trapped 171Yb+ ion. We also find strong linear correlations between lock points and environmental factors such as temperature and atmospheric pressure. Our approach provides a simple and stable solution at a relatively low cost, and features flexible control, high feedback bandwidth and minimal power consumption of the target UV laser.
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