Multi-cavity ultra-stable laser towards 10-18

TL;DR

This paper presents a multi-cavity approach to create ultra-stable lasers with significantly reduced frequency instability, achieving a level approaching 10^-18, by synthesizing laser frequencies across multiple cavities.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel multi-cavity stabilization technique that improves laser frequency stability by a factor of the square root of the number of cavities, reaching unprecedented low instability levels.

Findings

Frequency instability improved by a factor of 1.4 in experiments.

Synthesizing technique introduces negligible additional instability.

Achieves a frequency stability level limited by current signal generator noise.

Abstract

In this letter, we demonstrate a technique of making an ultrastable laser referenced to a multi-cavity, corresponding to a lower thermal noise limit due to the larger equivalent beam size. The multi-cavity consists of several pairs of mirrors and a common spacer. We can stabilize the laser frequencies on these cavities, and average the laser frequencies with synthesizing technique. In comparison with a single cavity system, relative frequency instability of the synthesized laser can be improved by a factor of the squire root of the cavity number (n). In addition, we perform an experiment to simulate a two-cavity system. Experimental results show that frequency instability of the synthesized laser is improved by a factor of 1.4, and discrimination of the laser frequency instability, introduced by the process of lasers synthesizing, is negligible, and can reach a floor at low level 10-18 limited by noise of currently used signal generators. This technique is comparable with other techniques; thus, it can gain a factor of the squre root of n on the frequency instability of an ultrastable laser to an unprecedented level.