Searches for extrasolar planets using the periodic Doppler shift of stellar spectral lines have recently achieved a precision of 60 cm s −1 (ref 1), which is sufficient to find a 5-Earth-mass planet in a Mercury-like orbit around a Sun-like star. To find a 1-Earth-mass planet in an Earthlike orbit, a precision of ∼ 5 cm s −1 is necessary. The combination of a laser frequency comb with a Fabry-Pérot filtering cavity has been suggested as a promising approach to achieve such Doppler shift resolution via improved spectrograph wavelength calibration 2−4 , with recent encouraging results 5 . Here we report the fabrication of such a filtered laser comb with up to 40-GHz (∼ 1-Å) line spacing, generated from a 1-GHz repetition-rate source, without compromising long-term stability, reproducibility or spectral resolution. This wide-line-spacing comb, or 'astro-comb', is well matched to the resolving power of high-resolution astrophysical spectrographs. The astro-comb should allow a precision as high as 1 cm s −1 in astronomical radial velocity measurements.The accuracy and long-term stability of state-of-theart astrophysical spectrographs are currently limited by the wavelength-calibration source 6,7 , typically either thorium-argon lamps or iodine absorption cells 8 . In addition, existing calibration sources are limited in the red-tonear-IR spectral bands most useful for exoplanet searches around M stars 9 and dark matter studies in globular clusters 10 . Iodine cells have very few spectral lines in the red and near-IR spectral bands, while thorium-argon lamps have limited lines and unstable bright features that saturate spectrograph detectors. Recently, laser frequency combs 11 have been suggested as potentially superior wavelength calibrators 2,3 because of their good longterm stability and reproducibility, and because they have useful lines in the red-to-near-IR range. The absolute optical frequencies of the comb lines are determined by f = f ceo + m × f rep , where f rep is the repetition rate, f ceo is the carrier-envelope offset frequency and m is an integer. Both f rep and f ceo can be synchronized with radio-frequency oscillators referenced to atomic clocks. For example, using the generally available Global Positioning System (GPS), the frequencies of comb lines have long-term fractional stability and accuracy of better than 10 −12 . For the calibration of an astrophysical spectrograph, fractional stability and accuracy of 3 × 10 −11 are sufficient to measure a velocity variation of 1 cm s −1 in astronomical objects. In addition, using GPS as the absolute reference allows the comparison of measurements at different observatories.For existing laser combs, f rep is usually < 1 GHz (ref. 12), which would require a spectrograph with a resolving power of R = λ/δλ 10 5 to resolve individual comb lines (here δλ is the smallest difference in wavelengths that can be resolved at wavelength λ). In practice, astrophysical spectrographs tend to have a resolving power of R ∼ 10 4 − 10 5 owing to physical limitations on the in...

We present a 9 GW peak power, three-cycle, 2.2 microm optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification source with 1.5% rms energy and 150 mrad carrier envelope phase fluctuations. These characteristics, in addition to excellent beam, wavefront, and pulse quality, make the source suitable for long-wavelength-driven high-harmonic generation. High stability is achieved by careful optimization of superfluorescence suppression, enabling energy scaling.

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Abstract:We deployed two wavelength calibrators based on laser frequency combs ("astro-combs") at an astronomical telescope. One astrocomb operated over a 100 nm band in the deep red (∼ 800 nm) and a second operated over a 20 nm band in the blue (∼ 400 nm). We used these red and blue astro-combs to calibrate a high-resolution astrophysical spectrograph integrated with a 1.5 m telescope, and demonstrated calibration precision and stability sufficient to enable detection of changes in stellar radial velocity < 1 m/s.

Abstract:We demonstrate a tunable laser frequency comb operating near 420 nm with mode spacing of 20-50 GHz, usable bandwidth of 15 nm and output power per line of ~20 nW. Using the TRES spectrograph at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory, we characterize this system to an accuracy below 1m/s, suitable for calibrating high-resolution astrophysical spectrographs used, e.g., in exoplanet studies.

An extensive one-dimensional laser model based on dispersion managed mode-locking is presented that accurately describes the pulse dynamics of octave-spanning Titanium:sapphire lasers generating sub-two-cycle pulses. By including detailed characteristics for the intracavity elements (mirrors and output coupler), it is demonstrated that the spectral output and temporal pulse shape of these lasers can be predicted quantitatively in very good agreement with experimental results.

Improved wavelength calibrators for high-resolution astrophysical spectrographs will be essential for precision radial velocity (RV) detection of Earth-like exoplanets and direct observation of cosmological deceleration. The astro-comb is a combination of an octave-spanning femtosecond laser frequency comb and a Fabry-Pérot cavity used to achieve calibrator line spacings that can be resolved by an astrophysical spectrograph. Systematic spectral shifts associated with the cavity can be 0.1-1 MHz, corresponding to RV errors of 10-100 cm/s, due to the dispersive properties of the cavity mirrors over broad spectral widths. Although these systematic shifts are very stable, their correction is crucial to high accuracy astrophysical spectroscopy. Here, we demonstrate an in-situ technique to determine the systematic shifts of astro-comb lines due to finite Fabry-Pérot cavity dispersion. The technique is practical for implementation at a telescope-based spectrograph to enable wavelength calibration accuracy better than 10 cm/s.

We demonstrate a high-average-power continuous wave (cw) and cw mode-locked Cr3+ :LiCAF laser pumped by broad-area laser diodes. In cw lasing experiments, up to 580 mW of output was obtained with 4.35 W of incident pump. A semiconductor saturable absorber mirror was used to initiate stable, self-starting, mode locking. In the cw mode-locked regime, the Cr3+ :LiCAF laser produced nearly transform-limited, 67 fs long pulses near 800 nm with an average output power of 300 mW. The pulse repetition rate was 120 MHz, with a pulse energy of 2.5 nJ.