Thermal Noise-Limited Laser Stabilization to an 8 mL Volume Fabry-Perot Reference Cavity with Microfabricated Mirrors

Published

March 29, 2022

Author(s)

Charles McLemore, Naijun Jin, Megan Kelleher, James Hendrie, David Mason, Yizhi Luo, Dahyeon Lee, Peter Rakich, Scott Diddams, Franklyn Quinlan

Abstract

Lasers stabilized to vacuum-gap Fabry-Perot optical reference cavities display extraordinarily low noise and high stability, with linewidths much less than 1 Hz. These lasers can expand into new applications and ubiquitous use with the development of compact, portable cavities that are manufacturable at scale. Here we demonstrate an 8 mL volume Fabry-Perot cavity constructed with mirrors that are fabricated lithographically with finesse near 1 million. A laser locked to the cavity exhibits phase noise limited by the cavity thermal noise for offset frequencies ranging from 1 Hz to 1 kHz, with a fractional frequency stability of 7x10^-15 at 1 second. Furthermore, the use of microfabricated mirrors allows us to expand the design space of centimeter-scale cavities, and we explore the noise implications of pushing towards thinner mirror substrates and smaller cavity diameters.

Citation

APL Photonics

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

optical reference cavity, microfabricated mirror, high finesse, compact cavity

Citation

McLemore, C. , Jin, N. , Kelleher, M. , Hendrie, J. , Mason, D. , Luo, Y. , Lee, D. , Rakich, P. , Diddams, S. and Quinlan, F. (2022), Thermal Noise-Limited Laser Stabilization to an 8 mL Volume Fabry-Perot Reference Cavity with Microfabricated Mirrors, APL Photonics, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=934393 (Accessed October 20, 2025)