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Wei Zhang, Liron Stern, David R. Carlson, Douglas G. Bopp, Zachary L. Newman, Songbai Kang, John Kitching, Scott Papp
Abstract
Lasers with high spectral purity can enable a diverse application space, including precision spectroscopy, coherent high-speed communications, physical sensing, and manipulation of quantum systems. Already, meticulous design and construction of bench Fabry-Perot cavities has madepossible dramatic achievements in active laser-linewidth reduction, predominantly for optical-atomic clocks. Yet there is increasing demand for miniaturized laser systems operating with high performance in ambient environments. Here, we report a compact and robust photonic-atomic laser comprising a 2.5-cm long, 20,000 finesse, monolithic Fabry-Perot cavity integrated with a micromachined rubidium vapor cell. By leveraging the short-time frequency stability of the cavity and the long-time frequency stability of atoms, we realize an ultranarrow-line width laser that enables integration for extended measurements. Specifically, our laser supports a fractional-frequency stability of 1×10−13 after 20 ms of measurement time,7×10−13 after 300 s,an integrated linewidth of 25 Hz that results from thermal noise, a Lorentzian linewidth as low as 0.06 Hz2/Hz, and a passive vibration immunity as low as 10−10/g. Our work explores hybrid laser systems with monolithic photonic and atomic packages based on physical design.
Zhang, W.
, Stern, L.
, Carlson, D.
, Bopp, D.
, Newman, Z.
, Kang, S.
, Kitching, J.
and Papp, S.
(2020),
Ultranarrow linewidth photonic-atomic laser, Optica, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=927983
(Accessed October 6, 2025)