All-optical absolute frequency stabilization of a laser diode through polarization spectroscopy

Abstract

Although laser diodes have an intrinsically broad emission linewidth with very quick frequency fluctuations, it is quite tempting to extend their broad range of applications to the design of compact optical clocks with absolute frequency stability. Indeed it is known1 that the high sensitivity of laser diode emission frequency to any backreflection can be used to implement nearly all-optical schemes of frequency stabilization on an optical resonance. To reach absolute frequency stability, a major task is to resonantly generate a high-contrast retroreflected beam from a spectroscopic experiment.