Intense, wideband optical waveform generation by self-balanced amplification of fiber electro-optical sideband modulation

TL;DR

This paper presents a simple, high-bandwidth method for generating intense, wideband optical waveforms with precise amplitude and phase control, suitable for atomic and molecular optical manipulation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel self-balanced amplification technique using a tapered semiconductor amplifier to produce accurate, high-power optical waveforms with suppressed noise.

Findings

Achieved GHz-level programmable modulation bandwidth.

Generated Watt-level optical output power.

Successfully demonstrated cooling and trapping of rubidium isotopes.

Abstract

We demonstrate a simple method to obtain accurate optical waveforms with a GHz-level programmable modulation bandwidth and Watt-level output power for wideband optical control of free atoms and molecules. Arbitrary amplitude and phase modulations are transferred from microwave to light with a low-power fiber electro-optical modulator. The sub-milliWatt optical sideband is co-amplified with the optical carrier in a power-balanced fashion through a tapered semiconductor amplifier (TSA). By automatically keeping TSA near saturation in a quasi-continuous manner, typical noise channels associated with pulsed high-gain amplifications are efficiently suppressed. As an example application, we demonstrate interleaved cooling and trapping of two rubidium isotopes with coherent nanosecond pulses.