Carrier-envelope offset dynamics and stabilization of femtosecond lasers

Author

Helbing, F.W. ; Steinmeyer, G. ; Gallmann, L. ; Keller, U. ; Windeler, R.S.

Author_Institution

Inst. for Quantum Electron., Swiss Fed. Inst. of Technol., Zurich, Switzerland

fYear

2002

fDate

24-24 May 2002

Firstpage

574

Abstract

Summary form only given. Control of the carrier-envelope offset (CEO) phase enables optical waveform synthesis and is of considerable importance in optical precision frequency metrology. Here we report on stabilization of the CEO frequency to an external rf reference oscillator with a jitter of 20 mrad (rms). This unprecedented low value corresponds to a relative timing jitter between laser carrier and envelope of 10 attoseconds (rms). Our stabilization is based on a careful investigation of sources of CEO phase fluctuations. We use chirped mirrors together with a prism sequence as well as mirror-only dispersion compensation in a Kerr-lens mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser.

Keywords

frequency standards; high-speed optical techniques; laser frequency stability; laser mode locking; laser noise; phase noise; solid lasers; timing jitter; titanium; Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/:Ti; Kerr-lens mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser; carrier-envelope offset dynamics; carrier-envelope offset phase control; chirped mirrors; external rf reference oscillator; femtosecond lasers; frequency stabilization; mirror-only dispersion compensation; optical precision frequency metrology; optical waveform synthesis; phase noise spectra; prism sequence; relative timing jitter; stabilization; Chirp; Fluctuations; Frequency synthesizers; Laser mode locking; Laser stability; Metrology; Optical control; Oscillators; Timing jitter; Ultrafast optics;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Lasers and Electro-Optics, 2002. CLEO '02. Technical Digest. Summaries of Papers Presented at the

Conference_Location

Long Beach, CA, USA

Print_ISBN

1-55752-706-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CLEO.2002.1034342

Filename

1034342