Fully Stabilized Mid-Infrared Frequency Comb for High-Precision Molecular Spectroscopy

Abstract

A fully stabilized mid-infrared optical frequency comb spanning from 2.9 to 3.4 um is described. The comb is based on half-harmonic generation in a femtosecond optical parametric oscillator, which transfers the high phase coherence of a fully stabilized near-infrared Er-doped fiber laser comb to the mid-infrared region. The method is simple, as no phase-locked loops or reference lasers are needed. Precise locking of optical frequencies of the mid-infrared comb to the pump comb is experimentally verified at sub-20 mHz level, which corresponds to a fractional statistical uncertainty of 2x10-16 at the center frequency of the mid-infrared comb. The fully stabilized mid-infrared comb is an ideal tool for high-precision molecular spectroscopy, as well as for optical frequency metrology in the mid-infrared region, which is difficult to access with other stabilized frequency comb techniques.

References in corpus (7)

• Mid-infrared frequency combs
• Coherent Dual Comb Spectroscopy at High Signal to Noise
• Phase-stabilized, 1.5-W frequency comb at 2.8 to 4.8 micron
• Quantum-noise-limited optical frequency comb spectroscopy
• High-power broadband laser source tunable from 3.0 um to 4.4 um based on a femtosecond Yb:fiber oscillator
• High-power mid-infrared frequency comb source based on a femtosecond Er:fiber oscillator
• Intracavity trace molecular detection with a broadband mid-IR frequency comb source

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Mid-infrared frequency comb generation with silicon nitride nano-photonic waveguides
• Microresonator-based high-resolution gas spectroscopy
• Quadratic soliton mode-locked degenerate optical parametric oscillator
• Simple method for mid-infrared optical frequency comb generation with dynamic offset frequency tuning
• Mid-infrared frequency comb with 25 pJ threshold via CW-seeded optical parametric generation in nonlinear waveguide
• Versatile optical frequency combs based on multi-seeded femtosecond optical parametric generation
• Velocity-selective two-photon absorption induced by a diode laser in combination with a train of ultrashort pulses
• Diode-laser-pumped continuous-wave mid-infrared optical parametric oscillator