Long-term stabilization of the length of an optical reference cavity

Gaëtan Hagel (1) , Marie Houssin (1) , Martina Knoop (1) , Caroline Champenois (1) , Michel Vedel (1) , Fernande Vedel (1)

1 PIIM - Physique des interactions ioniques et moléculaires

To obtain a high degree of long-term length stabilisation of an optical reference cavity, its free-spectral range is locked by means of an accurate and stable frequency synthesizer. The locking scheme is twofold: a laser is locked on the N$^{th}$ mode of a reference Fabry-Perot cavity and part of the laser light is shifted in frequency to be in resonance with the (N+1)$^{th}$ mode of the cavity. This shift is generated by an acousto-optical modulator (AOM) mounted in a double-pass scheme, matching half of the free spectral range of the reference cavity. The resulting absolute stabilization of the length of the cavity reaches the 10$^{-11}$ level per second, limited by the lock transfer properties and the frequency stability of the AOM control synthesizer.

Mots clés: laser frequency; length stabilization

Domaines: Physique Atomique [physics.atom-ph]; Autre

Gaëtan Hagel, Marie Houssin, Martina Knoop, Caroline Champenois, Michel Vedel, et al.. Long-term stabilization of the length of an optical reference cavity. Review of Scientific Instruments, 2005, 76, pp.123101. ⟨10.1063/1.2136069⟩. ⟨hal-00007728v3⟩