Absolute frequency measurement of wavelength standard at 1542nm: acetylene stabilized DFB laser

Abstract

The frequency of a wavelength standard at 1542 nm (194 THz) developed in CMI for the telecommunication band C was measured with a fiber femtosecond frequency comb. The measurement was done for three transitions of acety(13)C(2)H(2): P(14), P(15) and P(16). The results agree well with values in the recommendation for Practical realization of the definition of the metre [1] and even better with recent measurements made in NMIJ/AIST [2,3] - the differences are lower than 2 kHz (or 1x10-(-11) rel.) for all three transitions. This agreement is significant considering the fact that the CMI laser uses an extremely simple spectroscopic arrangement and substantially lower saturation power.

Comb-locked Lamb-dip spectrometer

“…Before the invention of optical frequency combs5, which made spectroscopic determinations absolutely traceable, the additional precision given by saturated spectroscopy was traded off by the absence of tools enabling a comparable level of accuracy. The advent of combs revitalized the Doppler-free regime and prompted the absolute calibration of line centre frequencies of several molecules in the visible67, near-infrared89 and mid-infrared range10111213. However, extended line surveys with retrieval of the relevant band spectroscopic constants have been performed only on quite intense lines, such as for 13 C 2 H 2 (10100-00000 band141516), C 2 H 2 (10100-00000 band1718, hot 10110-00010 and 10101-00001 bands19), NH 3 (1010-0000 and 1002-0000 bands20) and 18 H 2 O (101-000 band21) in the near-infrared, CO 2 (laser bands at 9 and 10 μm22) and N 2 O (100 ← 000 band23) in the mid-infrared.…”

A fiber-coupled gas cell for space application

“…Stéphane THOMIN (1) , Olivier BERA (2) , Pascal BERAUD (1) , Arnaud LECALLIER (1) , Laurence TONCK (1) , Salem BELMANA (1) , (1) Sodern, France, (2) Pléiades-Technologies, France…”

“…This laser system [1] will provide a signal with wavelength stability better than 10 -6 over the mission lifetime (8.5 Years) and better than 10 -7 over a duration of 24 hours. The laser's frequency is locked on the P(16) (ν1+ν3) transition of acetylene 13C2H2 (at 1542.4 nm) [2]. It corresponds to a reference wavelength which has been well characterized in terms of sensitivity to its environments (pressure and temperature) [3]- [4], and for which reliable telecommunications optical components are commercially available.…”

Transmission properties of hollow-core photonic bandgap fibers in relation to molecular spectroscopy

“…The spectrometer is based on two Koheras E15 fiber lasers with a nominal output of 25 mW: a master laser and a slave laser. The master laser is locked to the acetylene Pð16Þ transition using wavelength modulated saturation spectroscopy in a setup similar to the setup of Balling et al [15]. The Allan deviation describing the stability of the master laser is below 5 kHz for averaging times between 50 ms and several hours.…”