An All-Polarization-Maintaining Multi-Branch Optical Frequency Comb for Highly Sensitive Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy*

Abstract

We demonstrate a multi-branch all polarization-maintaining Er:fiber frequency comb with five application ports for precise measurement of atomic/molecular transition frequencies in the near-infrared region. A fully stabilized Er:fiber frequency comb with a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror is achieved. The in-loop relative instability of stabilized carrier-envelope-offset frequency is 5.6 × 10−18 at 1 s integration time, while that of the repetition rate is well below 1.8 × 10−12 limited by the measurement noise floor of the commercial frequency counter. Five application ports are individually optimized for applications with different wavelengths (1064 nm, 1083 nm, 1380 nm, 1637 nm and 1750 nm). The beat note between the optical frequency comb and continuous laser exhibits the signal-to-noise ratio of at least 30 dB at a resolution bandwidth of 100 kHz. The in-loop frequency instability of the comb is evaluated to be good enough for measurement of rotation-resolved transitions of molecules below 1 kHz resolution.