Vibration-insensitive reference cavity for an ultra-narrow-linewidth laser

We report a novel mounting of the reference cavity used for stabilization of the clock laser in an optical frequency standard. The cavity axis is oriented horizontally and the cavity is supported in its horizontal symmetry plane on four support points. The positions of the points were optimized by finite-element analysis. A sensitivity to accelerations of 1.5 kHz/(m/s2) in the vertical and 14 kHz/(m/s2) in the horizontal direction was measured, which is a reduction in the vertical sensitivity by two orders of magnitude compared to the usual support from below.

[1]  O. Jennrich.  Proceedings of the 5th International LISA Symposium and the 38th ESLAB Symposium, ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, 12-15 July 2004 , 2005 .

[2]  Flavio C. Cruz,et al.  VISIBLE LASERS WITH SUBHERTZ LINEWIDTHS , 1999 .

[3]  John L. Hall,et al.  Laser phase and frequency stabilization using an optical resonator , 1983 .

[4]  Harald Schnatz,et al.  Calcium optical frequency standard with ultracold atoms: Approaching 10 -15 relative uncertainty , 2005 .

[5]  S. Timoshenko,et al.  Theory of elasticity , 1975 .

[6]  Patrick Gill,et al.  Subhertz-linewidth Nd:YAG laser. , 2004, Optics letters.

[7]  Moore,et al.  Quantum projection noise: Population fluctuations in two-level systems. , 1993, Physical review. A, Atomic, molecular, and optical physics.

[8]  Jun Ye,et al.  Simple and compact 1-Hz laser system via an improved mounting configuration of a reference cavity. , 2005, Optics letters.

[9]  André Clairon,et al.  The Dick effect for an optical frequency standard , 2003 .

[10]  P. Gill,et al.  Hertz-Level Measurement of the Optical Clock Frequency in a Single 88Sr+ Ion , 2004, Science.

[11]  D. Blair,et al.  Cryogenic system for a sapphire Fabry-Perot optical frequency standard , 1996 .

[12]  C. Degenhardt,et al.  The optical calcium frequency standards of PTB and NIST , 2004 .

[13]  H. Stoehr,et al.  Diode laser with 1 Hz linewidth. , 2006, Optics letters.

[14]  M. Takamoto,et al.  An optical lattice clock , 2005, Nature.

[15]  W. Itano,et al.  Measurement of the (199)Hg+ 5d9 6s2 (2)D(5/2) electric quadrupole moment and a constraint on the quadrupole shift. , 2005, Physical review letters.

[16]  Kenji Numata,et al.  Thermal-noise limit in the frequency stabilization of lasers with rigid cavities. , 2004, Physical review letters.

[17]  M. E. Nordberg,et al.  A new ultralow-expansion, modified fused-silica glass. , 1968, Applied optics.

[18]  B Lipphardt,et al.  Limit on the present temporal variation of the fine structure constant. , 2004, Physical review letters.

[19]  D C Williams.  The parallelism of a length bar with an end load , 1962 .

[20]  John D. Prestage,et al.  Local oscillator induced degradation of medium-term stability in passive atomic frequency standards , 1990 .

[21]  G. J. Dick,et al.  Local Oscillator Induced Instabilities in Trapped Ion Frequency Standards , 1987 .