TY - JOUR
AU - Jun Ye
AU - Steven Cundiff
AU - S. Foreman
AU - Tara Fortier
AU - John Hall
AU - K. Holman
AU - D. Jones
AU - J. Jost
AU - Henry Kapteyn
AU - K. Leeuwen
AU - L.-S. Ma
AU - Margaret Murnane
AU - J.-L. Peng
AU - R. Shelton
AB - Precision phase control of an ultrawide-bandwidth optical-frequency comb has produced remarkable and unexpected progress in both areas of optical-frequency metrology and ultrafast optics. A frequency comb (with 100MHz spacing) spanning an entire optical octave (> 300 THz) has been produced, corresponding to millions of marks on a frequency “ruler” that are stable at the Hz level. The precision comb has been used to establish a simple optical clock based on an optical transition of iodine molecules, providing an rf clock signal with a frequency stability comparable to that of an optical standard, and which is superior to almost all conventional rf sources. To realize a high-power cw optical frequency synthesizer, a separate, widely tunable single-frequency cw laser has been employed to randomly access the stabilized optical comb and lock to any desired comb component. Carrier-envelope phase stabilization of few-cycle optical pulses has recently been realized. This advance in femtosecond technology is important for both extreme non-linear optics and optical-frequency metrology. With two independent femtosecond lasers, we have not only synchronized their relative pulse timing at the femtosecond level, but have also phase-locked their carrier frequencies, thus establishing phase coherence between the two lasers. By coherently stitching the optical bandwidth together, a “synthesized” pulse has been generated with its 2nd-order autocorrelation signal displaying a shorter width than those of the two “parent” lasers.
BT - Applied Physics B: Lasers and Optics
DA - 2002-06
DO - 10.1007/s00340-002-0905-9
N2 - Precision phase control of an ultrawide-bandwidth optical-frequency comb has produced remarkable and unexpected progress in both areas of optical-frequency metrology and ultrafast optics. A frequency comb (with 100MHz spacing) spanning an entire optical octave (> 300 THz) has been produced, corresponding to millions of marks on a frequency “ruler” that are stable at the Hz level. The precision comb has been used to establish a simple optical clock based on an optical transition of iodine molecules, providing an rf clock signal with a frequency stability comparable to that of an optical standard, and which is superior to almost all conventional rf sources. To realize a high-power cw optical frequency synthesizer, a separate, widely tunable single-frequency cw laser has been employed to randomly access the stabilized optical comb and lock to any desired comb component. Carrier-envelope phase stabilization of few-cycle optical pulses has recently been realized. This advance in femtosecond technology is important for both extreme non-linear optics and optical-frequency metrology. With two independent femtosecond lasers, we have not only synchronized their relative pulse timing at the femtosecond level, but have also phase-locked their carrier frequencies, thus establishing phase coherence between the two lasers. By coherently stitching the optical bandwidth together, a “synthesized” pulse has been generated with its 2nd-order autocorrelation signal displaying a shorter width than those of the two “parent” lasers.
PY - 2002
SP - s27 
EP -  s34
T2 - Applied Physics B: Lasers and Optics
TI - Phase-coherent synthesis of optical frequencies and waveforms
VL - 74
SN - 0946-2171
ER -