Ultrastable lasers form the back bone of precision measurements in science and technology. Such lasers attain their stability through frequency locking to reference cavities. State-of-the-art locking performances to date had been achieved using frequency-modulation based methods, complemented with active drift cancellation systems. We demonstrate an all passive, modulation-free laser-cavity locking technique (squash locking) that utilizes changes in beam ellipticity for error signal generation, and a coherent polarization post-selection for noise resilience. By comparing two identically built proof-of-principle systems, we show a frequency locking instability of 5 × 10 −7 relative to the cavity linewidth at 10 s averaging. The results surpass the demonstrated performances of methods engineered over the last five decades, opening a new path for further advancing the precision and simplicity of laser frequency stabilization.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.