Highly stable piezoelectrically tunable optical cavities

Abstract

We have implemented highly stable and tunable frequency references using optical high finesse cavities which incorporate a piezo actuator. As piezo material we used ceramic PZT, crystalline quartz, or PZN-PT single crystals. Lasers locked to these cavities show a relative frequency stability better than 1 x 10^{-14}, which is most likely not limited by the piezo actuators. The piezo cavities can be electrically tuned over more than one free spectral range (> 1.5 GHz) with only a minor decrease in frequency stability. Furthermore, we present a novel cavity design, where the piezo actuator is prestressed between the cavity spacer components. This design features a hermetically sealable intra cavity volume suitable for, e.g., cavity enhanced spectroscopy.

Accepted for publication in Applied Physics B. The final publication is available at link.springer.com

References in corpus (9)

• A sub-40 mHz linewidth laser based on a silicon single-crystal optical cavity
• Making optical atomic clocks more stable with $10^{-16}$ level laser stabilization
• Compact, thermal-noise-limited optical cavity for diode laser stabilization at 1 x 10-15
• Ultrastable lasers based on vibration insensitive cavities
• Ultra low frequency noise laser by locking to an optical fiber delay line
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