Phase-stabilized UV light at 267 nm through twofold second harmonic generation

authored by
F. Dawel, S. Hannig, J. Kramer, C. Nauk, P. O. Schmidt, Benjamin Kraus
Abstract

Providing phase stable laser light is important to extend the interrogation time of optical clocks towards many seconds and thus achieve small statistical uncertainties. We report a laser system providing more than 50 µW phase-stabilized UV light at 267.4 nm for an aluminium ion optical clock. The light is generated by frequency-quadrupling a fibre laser at 1069.6 nm in two cascaded non-linear crystals, both in single-pass configuration. In the first stage, a 10 mm long PPLN waveguide crystal converts 1 W fundamental light to more than 0.2 W at 534.8 nm. In the following 50 mm long DKDP crystal, more than 50 µW of light at 267.4 nm are generated. An upper limit for the passive short-term phase stability has been measured by a beat-node measurement with an existing phase-stabilized quadrupling system employing the same source laser. The resulting fractional frequency instability of less than 5×10−17 after 1 s supports lifetime-limited probing of the 27Al+ clock transition, given a sufficiently stable laser source. A further improved stability of the fourth harmonic light is expected through interferometric path length stabilisation of the pump light by back-reflecting it through the entire setup and correcting for frequency deviations. The in-loop error signal indicates an electronically limited instability of 1 × 10−18 at 1 s.

Organisation(s)
Institute of Quantum Optics
QuantumFrontiers
CRC 1464: Relativistic and Quantum-Based Geodesy (TerraQ)
External Organisation(s)
National Metrology Institute of Germany (PTB)
DLR-Institute for Satellite Geodesy and Inertial Sensing
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Type
Article
Journal
Optics express
Volume
30
Pages
44992-45007
No. of pages
16
ISSN
1094-4087
Publication date
05.12.2022
Publication status
Published
Peer reviewed
Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Electronic version(s)
https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.471450 (Access: Open)