All polarization-maintaining Er:fiber-based optical frequency comb for frequency comparison of optical clocks

Abstract

Abstract In this research, we demonstrate an optical frequency comb (OFC) based on a turnkey mode-locked laser with a figure-9 structure and polarization-maintaining fibers for frequency comparison between optical clocks with wavelengths of 698 nm, 729 nm, 1068 nm and 1156 nm. We adopt a multi-branch approach in order to produce high power OFC signals at these specific wavelengths, enabling the signal-to-noise ratio of the beatnotes between the OFC and the clock lasers beyond 30 dB at a resolution bandwidth of 300 kHz. This approach makes the supercontinuum spectra generating process much easier in comparison to a single branch OFC; however, more out-of-loop fibers degrade the long term frequency instability due to thermal drift. To minimize the thermal drift effect, we set the fiber lengths of different branches to be similar, and we stabilize the temperature as well. The out-of-loop frequency instability of the OFC due to the incoherence of the multi-branch is about 5.5×10-19 @ 4000 s, while the in-loop frequency instability of f ceo and that of f beat are 7.5×10-18 @1 s and 8.5×10-18 @1 s, respectively. The turnkey OFC meets the requirement of frequency comparison between the best optical clocks.