Compact Yb fiber few-cycle pulse source based on precision pulse compression and shaping with an adaptive fiber Bragg grating.

We generate bandwidth limited 10 µJ pulses of 92 fs pulse width using an adaptive fiber Bragg grating stretcher (FBG) in conjunction with a Lyot filter. The temperature controlled FBG is used to optimize the group delay, whereas the Lyot filter counteracts gain narrowing in the amplifier chain. Soliton compression in a hollow core fiber (HCF) allows for access to the few-cycle pulse regime. Adaptive control further enables the generation of nontrivial pulse shapes.

Coherent supercontinuum shaping for multiple wavelength optimization over an octave.

We shape the spectrum of an octave spanning supercontinuum from an erbium fiber laser. The group delay dispersion is controlled through the temperature profile of a chirped fiber Bragg grating. We demonstrate control of spectral broadening, switching in spectral windows, and optimizing power at six wavelengths corresponding to Yb, Ca, and Sr clock transitions, an f-2f pair, and a C-band reference for frequency transfer applications. We verify locking of the shaped f-2f beat note, and the coherence of the shaped supercontinuum by interference with an unshaped supercontinuum branch with relative frequency deviation of 10-17 at 1 s averaging time.

Coherent frequency transfer with < 5*10-21 stability via a multi-branch comb with noise cancellation.

We demonstrate a multi-branch frequency comb for spectral purity transfer incorporating hardware enabled noise cancellation based on a cw noise transfer laser. We verify coherent frequency transfer at stabilities ≈ 2×10-18 in 1 second and < 5×10-21 in 10,000 seconds without any reference cavity.

Tunable VUV frequency comb for 229mTh nuclear spectroscopy.

Laser spectroscopy of the 229mTh nuclear clock transition is necessary for the future construction of a nuclear-based optical clock. Precision laser sources with broad spectral coverage in the vacuum ultraviolet are needed for this task. Here, we present a tunable vacuum-ultraviolet frequency comb based on cavity-enhanced seventh-harmonic generation. Its tunable spectrum covers the current uncertainty range of the 229mTh nuclear clock transition.

Direct Comb Vernier Spectroscopy for Fractional Isotopic Ratio Determinations.

Accurate isotopic composition analysis of the greenhouse-gasses emitted in the atmosphere is an important step to mitigate global climate warnings. Optical frequency comb-based spectroscopic techniques have shown ideal performance to accomplish the simultaneous monitoring of the different isotope substituted species of such gases. The capabilities of one such technique, namely, direct comb Vernier spectroscopy, to determine the fractional isotopic ratio composition are discussed. This technique combines interferometric filtering of the comb source in a Fabry-Perot that contains the sample gas, with a high resolution dispersion spectrometer to resolve the spectral content of each interacting frequency inside of the Fabry-Perot. Following this methodology, simultaneous spectra of ro-vibrational transitions of 12C16O2 and 13C16O2 molecules are recorded and analyzed with an accurate fitting procedure. Fractional isotopic ratio 13C/12C at 3% of precision is measured for a sample of CO2 gas, showing the potentialities of the technique for all isotopic-related applications of this important pollutant.

Low noise, self-referenced all polarization maintaining Ytterbium fiber laser frequency comb: erratum.

We provide a corrected figure of our previous publication [Opt. Express25, 18017 (2017)10.1364/OE.25.018017].

Continuous scanning of a dissipative Kerr-microresonator soliton comb for broadband, high-resolution spectroscopy.

Dissipative Kerr-microresonator soliton combs (hereafter called soliton combs) are promising to realize chip-scale integration of full soliton comb systems providing high precision, broad spectral coverage, and a coherent link to the micro/mm/THz domain with diverse applications coming on line all the time. However, the large soliton comb spacing hampers some applications. For example, for spectroscopic applications, there are simply not enough comb lines available to sufficiently cover almost any relevant absorption features. Here, we overcome this limitation by scanning the comb mode spacing by employing Pound-Drever-Hall locking and a microheater on the microresonator, showing continuous scanning of the soliton comb modes across nearly the full free-spectral range of the microresonator without losing soliton operation, while spectral features with a bandwidth as small as 5 MHz are resolved.

Control of Kerr-microresonator optical frequency comb by a dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder interferometer.

A technique to integrate key functions of a Kerr-microresonator optical frequency comb into one device, i.e., a dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder interferometer (DP-MZI), is proposed. In the technique, a DP-MZI enables the control of carrier envelope offset frequency (fceo), as well as repetition frequency (frep), in addition to generating a stable dissipative Kerr soliton. In experiments, influences on fceo and frep by pump frequency and power modulation via a DP-MZI are investigated, followed by a demonstration of long-term full stabilization of a microresonator soliton comb to a fiber-based optical frequency comb. As another example demonstration, timing jitter of a microresonator soliton comb is significantly suppressed by referencing to a fiber through a two-wavelength delayed self-heterodyne interferometer (TWDI).

Direct frequency comb spectroscopy in the extreme ultraviolet.

The development of the optical frequency comb (a spectrum consisting of a series of evenly spaced lines) has revolutionized metrology and precision spectroscopy owing to its ability to provide a precise and direct link between microwave and optical frequencies. A further advance in frequency comb technology is the generation of frequency combs in the extreme-ultraviolet spectral range by means of high-harmonic generation in a femtosecond enhancement cavity. Until now, combs produced by this method have lacked sufficient power for applications, a drawback that has also hampered efforts to observe phase coherence of the high-repetition-rate pulse train produced by high-harmonic generation, which is an extremely nonlinear process. Here we report the generation of extreme-ultraviolet frequency combs, reaching wavelengths of 40 nanometres, by coupling a high-power near-infrared frequency comb to a robust femtosecond enhancement cavity. These combs are powerful enough for us to observe single-photon spectroscopy signals for both an argon transition at 82 nanometres and a neon transition at 63 nanometres, thus confirming the combs' coherence in the extreme ultraviolet. The absolute frequency of the argon transition has been determined by direct frequency comb spectroscopy. The resolved ten-megahertz linewidth of the transition, which is limited by the temperature of the argon atoms, is unprecedented in this spectral region and places a stringent upper limit on the linewidth of individual comb teeth. Owing to the lack of continuous-wave lasers, extreme-ultraviolet frequency combs are at present the only promising route to extending ultrahigh-precision spectroscopy to the spectral region below 100 nanometres. At such wavelengths there is a wide range of applications, including the spectroscopy of electronic transitions in molecules, experimental tests of bound-state and many-body quantum electrodynamics in singly ionized helium and neutral helium, the development of next-generation 'nuclear' clocks and searches for variation of fundamental constants using the enhanced sensitivity of highly charged ions.

Phase-stabilized 100 mW frequency comb near 10 µm.

Long-wavelength mid-infrared (MIR) frequency combs with high power and flexible tunability are highly desired for molecular spectroscopy, including investigation of large molecules such as C60. We present a high power, phase-stabilized frequency comb near 10 µm, generated by a synchronously pumped, singly resonant optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based on AgGaSe2. The OPO can be continuously tuned from 8.4 to 9.5 µm, with a maximum average idler power of 100 mW at the center wavelength of 8.5 µm. Both the repetition rate (f rep) and the carrier-envelope offset frequency (f ceo) of the idler wave are phase-locked to microwave signals referenced to a Cs clock. We describe the detailed design and construction of the frequency comb, and discuss potential applications for precise and sensitive direct frequency comb spectroscopy.

Low noise, self-referenced all polarization maintaining Ytterbium fiber laser frequency comb.

We report the implementation of a self-referenced optical frequency comb generated by a passively mode-locked all polarization maintaining (PM) Yb fiber laser based on a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror (NALM). After spectral broadening the optical spectrum spans from 650 nm to 1400 nm, allowing for the generation of an optical octave and carrier envelope offset frequency (fceo) stabilization through a conventional f-2f interferometer. We demonstrate for the first time the stabilization of the fceo of such a PM Yb system with an in-loop fractional frequency stability scaled to an optical frequency of low 10-19 at 1 second averaging time, offering a great potential for applications in optical atomic clock metrology.

Low noise electro-optic comb generation by fully stabilizing to a mode-locked fiber comb.

A fully stabilized EO comb is demonstrated by phase locking the two degrees of freedom of an EO comb to a low noise mode-locked fiber comb. Division/magnification of residual phase noise of locked beats is observed by measuring an out-of-loop beat. By phase locking the 200 th harmonics of the EO comb and a driving cw frequency to a fiber comb, a record low phase noise EO comb across +/- 200 harmonics (from 1544.8 nm to 1577.3 nm) is demonstrated.

Self-referenced, accurate and sensitive optical frequency comb spectroscopy with a virtually imaged phased array spectrometer.

We present a cavity-enhanced direct optical frequency comb spectroscopy system with a virtually imaged phased array (VIPA) spectrometer and either a dither or a Pound-Drever-Hall (PDH) locking scheme used for stable transmission of the comb through the cavity. A self-referenced scheme for frequency axis calibration is shown along with an analysis of its accuracy. A careful comparison between both locking schemes is performed based on near-IR measurements of the carbon monoxide ν=3←0 band P branch transitions in a gas sample with known composition. The noise-equivalent absorptions (NEA) for the PDH and dither schemes are 9.9×10(-10) cm(-1) and 5.3×10(-9) cm(-1), respectively.

Fourier transform and Vernier spectroscopy using an optical frequency comb at 3-5.4 µm.

We present a versatile mid-infrared frequency comb spectroscopy system based on a doubly resonant optical parametric oscillator tunable in the 3-5.4 µm range and two detection methods: a Fourier transform spectrometer (FTS) and a continuous-filtering Vernier spectrometer (CF-VS). Using the FTS with a multipass cell, we measure high precision broadband absorption spectra of CH4 at 3.3 µm and NO at 5.25 µm, the latter for the first time with comb spectroscopy, and we detect atmospheric species (CH4, CO, CO2, and H2O) in air in the signal and idler ranges. Multiline fitting yields minimum detectable concentrations of 10-20 ppb Hz-1/2 for CH4, NO, and CO. For the first time in the mid-infrared, we perform CF-VS using an enhancement cavity, a grating, and a single detector, and we measure the absorption spectrum of CH4 and H2O in ambient air at ∼3.3 µm, reaching a 40 ppb concentration detection limit for CH4 in 2 ms.

Three-photon absorption in optical parametric oscillators based on OP-GaAs.

We report on, to the best of our knowledge, the first singly resonant (SR), synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based on orientation-patterned gallium arsenide (OP-GaAs). Together with a doubly resonant (DR) degenerate OPO based on the same OP-GaAs material, the output spectra cover 3 to 6 µm within ∼3 dB of relative power. The DR-OPO has the highest output power reported to date from a femtosecond, synchronously pumped OPO based on OP-GaAs. We observed strong three-photon absorption with a coefficient of 0.35±0.08 cm3/GW2 for our OP-GaAs sample, which limits the output power of these OPOs as mid-IR light sources. We present a detailed study of the three-photon loss on the performance of both the SR- and DR-OPOs, and compare them to those without this loss mechanism.

Multiplex Raman induced Kerr effect microscopy.

We report spectrally-resolved chemical imaging based on Raman induced Kerr effect spectroscopy (RIKES). When used with circularly-polarized pump excitation, multiplex RIKES offers the potential for spectrally-resolved imaging free of the nonresonant background that plagues coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering. RIKES does however have a highly sample-dependent birefringent background that limits its sensitivity and can introduce spectral distortions. We demonstrate that in low birefringence samples multiplex RIKES microscopy offers an enhanced signal-to-noise ratio compared to multiplex stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) when implemented in a high polarization-purity, low frequency chopping scheme.

Widely-tunable mid-infrared frequency comb source based on difference frequency generation.

We report on a mid-IR frequency comb source of unprecedented tunability covering the entire 3-10 µm molecular fingerprint region. The system is based on difference frequency generation in a GaSe crystal pumped by a 151 MHz Yb:fiber frequency comb. The process was seeded with Raman-shifted solitons generated in a highly nonlinear suspended-core fiber with the same source. Average powers up to 1.5 mW were achieved at the 4.7 µm wavelength.

Supercontinuum generation in quasi-phasematched waveguides.

We numerically investigate supercontinuum generation in quasi-phase-matched waveguides using a single-envelope approach to capture second and third order nonlinear processes involved in the generation of octave-spanning spectra. Simulations are shown to agree with experimental results in reverse-proton-exchanged lithium-niobate waveguides. The competition between χ((2)) and χ((3)) self phase modulation effects is discussed. Chirped quasi-phasematched gratings and stimulated Raman scattering are shown to enhance spectral broadening, and the pulse dynamics involved in the broadening processes are explained.

Supercontinuum generation in quasi-phase-matched LiNbO3 waveguide pumped by a Tm-doped fiber laser system.

We demonstrate self-referencing of a Tm-doped fiber oscillator-amplifier system by performing octave-spanning supercontinuum generation in a periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide. We model the supercontinuum generation numerically and show good agreement with the experiment.

80 W, 120 fs Yb-fiber frequency comb.

We report on a high-power fiber frequency comb exhibiting linear chirped-pulse amplification up to 80 W and generating 120 fs pulses. By proper matching of the group delay between the fiber stretcher and compressor, a compression ratio of 3100 could be achieved. Carrier envelope offset self-referencing and long-term phase locking to an rf reference is demonstrated, exemplifying the suitability of this system for generating vacuum and extreme-UV frequency combs via enhancement in passive cavities and high harmonic generation.