High performance iodine frequency reference for tests of the LISA laser system

Author

Doringshoff, Klaus ; Mohle, K. ; Nagel, Michael ; Kovalchuk, E.V. ; Peters, Achim

Author_Institution

Inst. fur Phys., Humboldt-Univ. zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

fYear

2010

fDate

13-16 April 2010

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

6

Abstract

Forthcoming space missions like the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) or the Space-Time Asymmetry Research (STAR) project call for optical frequency references with high frequency stability better than 10^-14 at averaging times longer than 1000 s. Since Nd:YAG lasers are planned to be used on these missions, new interest has arisen in the frequency stabilization of Nd:YAG lasers to hyperfine transitions in molecular iodine. Iodine stabilized lasers offer an absolute optical frequency reference with high frequency stability and low sensitivity to temperature fluctuations and magnetic fields in relative simple setups. Here we present our iodine frequency standard using modulation transfer spectroscopy with a multi-pass iodine cell showing a frequency stability of 1·10^-14 at 1 s averaging time.

Keywords

aerospace instrumentation; frequency stability; light interferometry; space research; LISA laser system; frequency stabilization; high performance iodine frequency reference; laser interferometer space antenna; modulation transfer spectroscopy; molecular iodine; multipass iodine cell; optical frequency references; space missions; space-time asymmetry research project call;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

EFTF-2010 24th European Frequency and Time Forum

Conference_Location

Noordwijk

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-5970-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/EFTF.2010.6533715

Filename

6533715