An inhibited laser

TL;DR

This paper introduces an inhibited laser that suppresses stimulated emission by placing the atomic resonance between cavity resonances, potentially enhancing the stability of optical clocks and advancing quantum metrology.

Contribution

It experimentally demonstrates inhibited stimulated emission in an anti-resonant cavity, improving cavity-pulling suppression compared to traditional superradiant optical clocks.

Findings

Suppression of cavity-pulling effect increased by a factor of approximately 2.07.

Achieved a suppression factor of 53 times, up from 26.

Provides a new approach for more stable optical clocks and quantum measurements.

Abstract

Traditional lasers function using resonant cavities, in which the round-trip optical path is exactly equal to an integer multiple of the intracavity wavelengths to constructively enhance the spontaneous emission rate. By taking advantage of the enhancement from the resonant cavity, the narrowest sub-10-mHz-linewidth laser and a $10^{-16}$-fractional-frequency-stability superradiant active optical clock (AOC) have been achieved. However, a laser with atomic spontaneous radiation being destructively inhibited in an anti-resonant cavity, where the atomic resonance is exactly between two adjacent cavity resonances, has not been reported. Herein, we experimentally demonstrate inhibited stimulated emission and termed it an inhibited laser. Compared with traditional superradiant AOCs, which exhibit superiority in terms of the high suppression of cavity noise, the suppression of the cavity-pulling effect of an inhibited laser can be further improved by a factor of $(2F/pi)^2$, i.e., 2.07 in this work, which was improved from 26 to 53 times. This study will guide further development of AOCs with better stability, and thus, it is significant for quantum metrology and may lead to new research in the laser physics and cavity quantum electrodynamics fields.