Ultrastable vacuum-gap Fabry-Perot cavities 2 operated in air

Published

August 21, 2024

Author(s)

Susan Schima, Franklyn Quinlan, Yifan Liu, Charles McLemore, Takuma Nakamura, Nazanin Hoghooghi, Scott Diddams, Peter Rakich, Dahyeon Lee, Naijun Jin, Megan Kelleher, Haotian Cheng

Abstract

We demonstrate a vacuum-gap ultrastable optical reference cavity that does not require a vacuum enclosure. Our simple method of optical contact bonding in a vacuum environment allows for cavity operation in air while maintaining vacuum between the cavity mirrors. Vacuum is maintained long term, with no observed degradation in cavity stability for over 1 year after bonding. For a 1550nm laser stabilized to a 9.7mL in-vacuum bonded cavity, the measured Allan deviation is $2.4\times 10^-14}$ at 1s and its phase noise is thermal-noise-limited from 0.1Hz to 10kHz, reaching about -110dBc/Hz at 10kHz offset frequency. This represents the lowest noise and highest stability of any oscillator operated without a vacuum enclosure. Furthermore, we demonstrate a 0.5mL in-vacuum bonded cavity created using microfabricated mirrors and cavity dicing, with phase noise reaching -95dBc/Hz at 10 kHz offset frequency. By relieving the need for high vacuum enclosures, we greatly enhance the portability and utility of low noise, compact cavity-stabilized lasers, with applications ranging from environmental sensing to mobile optical clocks to ultralow microwave generation.

Citation

Optica

Pub Type

Journals

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https://doi.org/10.1364/OPTICA.532883

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Citation

Schima, S. , Quinlan, F. , Liu, Y. , McLemore, C. , Nakamura, T. , Hoghooghi, N. , Diddams, S. , Rakich, P. , Lee, D. , Jin, N. , Kelleher, M. and Cheng, H. (2024), Ultrastable vacuum-gap Fabry-Perot cavities 2 operated in air, Optica, [online], https://doi.org/10.1364/OPTICA.532883, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=958142 (Accessed October 10, 2025)