Active optical clock based on four-level quantum system

Active optical clock,a new conception of atomic clock,has been proposed recently.In this work,we propose a scheme of active optical clock based on four-level quantum system.The final accuracy and stability of two-level quantum system are limited by second-order Doppler shift of thermal atomic beam.To three-level quantum system,they are mainly limited by light shift of pumping laser field.These limitations can be avoided effectively by applying the scheme proposed here.Rubidium atom four-level quantum system,as a typical example,is discussed.The population inversion between 6S 1/2 and 5P 3/2 states can be built up at a time scale of 10-6 s.With the mechanism of active optical clock,in which the cavity mode linewidth is much wider than that of the laser gain profile,it can output a laser with quantum-limited linewidth narrower than 1 Hz in theory.An experimental configuration is designed to realize this active optical clock.     

Electromagnetically induced transparency with resonant nuclei in a cavity

The manipulation of light-matter interactions by quantum control of atomic levels has had a profound impact on optical sciences. Such manipulation has many applications, including nonlinear optics at the few-photon level, slow light, lasing without inversion and optical quantum information processing. The critical underlying technique is electromagnetically induced transparency, in which quantum interference between transitions in multilevel atoms renders an opaque medium transparent near an atomic resonance. With the advent of high-brilliance, accelerator-driven light sources such as storage rings or X-ray lasers, it has become attractive to extend the techniques of optical quantum control to the X-ray regime. Here we demonstrate electromagnetically induced transparency in the regime of hard X-rays, using the 14.4-kiloelectronvolt nuclear resonance of the M?ssbauer isotope iron-57 (a two-level system). We exploit cooperative emission from ensembles of the nuclei, which are embedded in a low-finesse cavity and excited by synchrotron radiation. The spatial modulation of the photonic density of states in a cavity mode leads to the coexistence of superradiant and subradiant states of nuclei, respectively located at an antinode and a node of the cavity field. This scheme causes the nuclei to behave as effective three-level systems, with two degenerate levels in the excited state (one of which can be considered metastable). The radiative coupling of the nuclear ensembles by the cavity field establishes the atomic coherence necessary for the cancellation of resonant absorption. Because this technique does not require atomic systems with a metastable level, electromagnetically induced transparency and its applications can be transferred to the regime of nuclear resonances, establishing the field of nuclear quantum optics.     

Experimental realization of a one-atom laser in the regime of strong coupling

Conventional lasers (from table-top systems to microscopic devices) typically operate in the so-called weak-coupling regime, involving large numbers of atoms and photons; individual quanta have a negligible impact on the system dynamics. However, this is no longer the case when the system approaches the regime of strong coupling for which the number of atoms and photons can become quite small. Indeed, the lasing properties of a single atom in a resonant cavity have been extensively investigated theoretically. Here we report the experimental realization of a one-atom laser operated in the regime of strong coupling. We exploit recent advances in cavity quantum electrodynamics that allow one atom to be isolated in an optical cavity in a regime for which one photon is sufficient to saturate the atomic transition. The observed characteristics of the atom-cavity system are qualitatively different from those of the familiar many-atom case. Specifically, our measurements of the intracavity photon number versus pump intensity indicate that there is no threshold for lasing, and we infer that the output flux from the cavity mode exceeds that from atomic fluorescence by more than tenfold. Observations of the second-order intensity correlation function demonstrate that our one-atom laser generates manifestly quantum (nonclassical) light, typified by photon anti-bunching and sub-poissonian photon statistics.     

A continuous-wave Raman silicon laser

Achieving optical gain and/or lasing in silicon has been one of the most challenging goals in silicon-based photonics because bulk silicon is an indirect bandgap semiconductor and therefore has a very low light emission efficiency. Recently, stimulated Raman scattering has been used to demonstrate light amplification and lasing in silicon. However, because of the nonlinear optical loss associated with two-photon absorption (TPA)-induced free carrier absorption (FCA), until now lasing has been limited to pulsed operation. Here we demonstrate a continuous-wave silicon Raman laser. Specifically, we show that TPA-induced FCA in silicon can be significantly reduced by introducing a reverse-biased p-i-n diode embedded in a silicon waveguide. The laser cavity is formed by coating the facets of the silicon waveguide with multilayer dielectric films. We have demonstrated stable single mode laser output with side-mode suppression of over 55 dB and linewidth of less than 80 MHz. The lasing threshold depends on the p-i-n reverse bias voltage and the laser wavelength can be tuned by adjusting the wavelength of the pump laser. The demonstration of a continuous-wave silicon laser represents a significant milestone for silicon-based optoelectronic devices.     

Raman injection laser

Stimulated Raman scattering is a nonlinear optical process that, in a broad variety of materials, enables the generation of optical gain at a frequency that is shifted from that of the incident radiation by an amount corresponding to the frequency of an internal oscillation of the material. This effect is the basis for a broad class of tunable sources known as Raman lasers. In general, these sources have only small gain (approximately 10(-9) cm W(-1)) and therefore require external pumping with powerful lasers, which limits their applications. Here we report the realization of a semiconductor injection Raman laser designed to circumvent these limitations. The physics underlying our device differs in a fundamental way from existing Raman lasers: it is based on triply resonant stimulated Raman scattering between quantum-confined states within the active region of a quantum cascade laser that serves as an internal optical pump--the device is driven electrically and no external laser pump is required. This leads to an enhancement of orders of magnitude in the Raman gain, high conversion efficiency and low threshold. Our lasers combine the advantages of nonlinear optical devices and of semiconductor injection lasers, and could lead to a new class of compact and wavelength-agile mid-and far-infrared light sources.     

Atomic inner-shell X-ray laser at 1.46 nanometres pumped by an X-ray free-electron laser

Since the invention of the laser more than 50 years ago, scientists have striven to achieve amplification on atomic transitions of increasingly shorter wavelength. The introduction of X-ray free-electron lasers makes it possible to pump new atomic X-ray lasers with ultrashort pulse duration, extreme spectral brightness and full temporal coherence. Here we describe the implementation of an X-ray laser in the kiloelectronvolt energy regime, based on atomic population inversion and driven by rapid K-shell photo-ionization using pulses from an X-ray free-electron laser. We established a population inversion of the Kα transition in singly ionized neon at 1.46 nanometres (corresponding to a photon energy of 849 electronvolts) in an elongated plasma column created by irradiation of a gas medium. We observed strong amplified spontaneous emission from the end of the excited plasma. This resulted in femtosecond-duration, high-intensity X-ray pulses of much shorter wavelength and greater brilliance than achieved with previous atomic X-ray lasers. Moreover, this scheme provides greatly increased wavelength stability, monochromaticity and improved temporal coherence by comparison with present-day X-ray free-electron lasers. The atomic X-ray lasers realized here may be useful for high-resolution spectroscopy and nonlinear X-ray studies.     

Frequency stabilization and linewidth narrowing with modulation transfer spectroscopy

We report laser frequency stabilization with modulation transfer spectroscopy (MTS) on ⁸⁵Rb atoms. With both PZT (piezo-electric transducer) slow-loop feedback and current fastloop feedback to the laser head, we get a linewidth narrowing less than 5 kHz simultaneously. Laser injection to a laser diode and frequency beating with another polarization spectroscopy based stabilization setup are also employed to check the narrow linewidth property. With the help of the technique, a linewidth around kHz-level laser is obtained and pave the way for the locking of the lattice laser of ytterbium clock with transfer cavity technique. The setup can be used as a frequency reference for precise frequency control of atomic clock system.     

Direct frequency comb spectroscopy in the extreme ultraviolet

The development of the optical frequency comb (a spectrum consisting of a series of evenly spaced lines) has revolutionized metrology and precision spectroscopy owing to its ability to provide a precise and direct link between microwave and optical frequencies. A further advance in frequency comb technology is the generation of frequency combs in the extreme-ultraviolet spectral range by means of high-harmonic generation in a femtosecond enhancement cavity. Until now, combs produced by this method have lacked sufficient power for applications, a drawback that has also hampered efforts to observe phase coherence of the high-repetition-rate pulse train produced by high-harmonic generation, which is an extremely nonlinear process. Here we report the generation of extreme-ultraviolet frequency combs, reaching wavelengths of 40?nanometres, by coupling a high-power near-infrared frequency comb to a robust femtosecond enhancement cavity. These combs are powerful enough for us to observe single-photon spectroscopy signals for both an argon transition at 82?nanometres and a neon transition at 63?nanometres, thus confirming the combs' coherence in the extreme ultraviolet. The absolute frequency of the argon transition has been determined by direct frequency comb spectroscopy. The resolved ten-megahertz linewidth of the transition, which is limited by the temperature of the argon atoms, is unprecedented in this spectral region and places a stringent upper limit on the linewidth of individual comb teeth. Owing to the lack of continuous-wave lasers, extreme-ultraviolet frequency combs are at present the only promising route to extending ultrahigh-precision spectroscopy to the spectral region below 100?nanometres. At such wavelengths there is a wide range of applications, including the spectroscopy of electronic transitions in molecules, experimental tests of bound-state and many-body quantum electrodynamics in singly ionized helium and neutral helium, the development of next-generation 'nuclear' clocks and searches for variation of fundamental constants using the enhanced sensitivity of highly charged ions.     

外腔半导体激光器的实验研究

本文报道了外腔半导体激光器的一些研究成果。利用闪耀光栅作反馈元件，对808nm波长的半导体激光器形成弱耦合外腔，实现了光谱特笥较好的窄线宽单模激光输出，线宽小于0.06nm，边模抑制比大于30dB，最大输出功率为35.4mW，总的光－光转换效率为46％。通过调整光栅转角，可以得到11.66nm的波长调谐范围。设计了光栅－反向镜联动结构，使外腔半导体激光器的输出方向不再随调谐而变化。     

Measurement of the internal state of a single atom without energy exchange

A measurement necessarily changes the quantum state being measured, a phenomenon known as back-action. Real measurements, however, almost always cause a much stronger back-action than is required by the laws of quantum mechanics. Quantum non-demolition measurements have been devised that keep the additional back-action entirely within observables other than the one being measured. However, this back-action on other observables often imposes its own constraints. In particular, free-space optical detection methods for single atoms and ions (such as the shelving technique, a sensitive and well-developed method) inevitably require spontaneous scattering, even in the dispersive regime. This causes irreversible energy exchange (heating), which is a limitation in atom-based quantum information processing, where it obviates straightforward reuse of the qubit. No such energy exchange is required by quantum mechanics. Here we experimentally demonstrate optical detection of an atomic qubit with significantly less than one spontaneous scattering event. We measure the transmission and reflection of an optical cavity containing the atom. In addition to the qubit detection itself, we quantitatively measure how much spontaneous scattering has occurred. This allows us to relate the information gained to the amount of spontaneous emission, and we obtain a detection error below 10 per cent while scattering less than 0.2 photons on average. Furthermore, we perform a quantum Zeno-type experiment to quantify the measurement back-action, and find that every incident photon leads to an almost complete state collapse. Together, these results constitute a full experimental characterization of a quantum measurement in the 'energy exchange-free' regime below a single spontaneous emission event. Besides its fundamental interest, this approach could significantly simplify proposed neutral-atom quantum computation schemes, and may enable sensitive detection of molecules and atoms lacking closed transitions.     

Single-pulse coherently controlled nonlinear Raman spectroscopy and microscopy

Molecular vibrations have oscillation periods that reflect the molecular structure, and are hence being used as a spectroscopic fingerprint for detection and identification. At present, all nonlinear spectroscopy schemes use two or more laser beams to measure such vibrations. The availability of ultrashort (femtosecond) optical pulses with durations shorter than typical molecular vibration periods has enabled the coherent excitation of molecular vibrations using a single pulse. Here we perform single-pulse vibrational spectroscopy on several molecules in the liquid phase, where both the excitation and the readout processes are performed by the same pulse. The main difficulty with single-pulse spectroscopy is that all vibrational levels with energies within the pulse bandwidth are excited. We achieve high spectral resolution, nearly two orders of magnitude better than the pulse bandwidth, by using quantum coherent control techniques. By appropriately modulating the spectral phase of the pulse we are able to exploit the quantum interference between multiple paths to selectively populate a given vibrational level, and to probe this population using the same pulse. This scheme, using a single broadband laser source, is particularly attractive for nonlinear microscopy applications, as we demonstrate by constructing a coherent anti-Stokes Raman (CARS) microscope operating with a single laser beam.     

An all-silicon Raman laser

The possibility of light generation and/or amplification in silicon has attracted a great deal of attention for silicon-based optoelectronic applications owing to the potential for forming inexpensive, monolithic integrated optical components. Because of its indirect bandgap, bulk silicon shows very inefficient band-to-band radiative electron-hole recombination. Light emission in silicon has thus focused on the use of silicon engineered materials such as nanocrystals, Si/SiO2 superlattices, erbium-doped silicon-rich oxides, surface-textured bulk silicon and Si/SiGe quantum cascade structures. Stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) has recently been demonstrated as a mechanism to generate optical gain in planar silicon waveguide structures. In fact, net optical gain in the range 2-11 dB due to SRS has been reported in centimetre-sized silicon waveguides using pulsed pumping. Recently, a lasing experiment involving silicon as the gain medium by way of SRS was reported, where the ring laser cavity was formed by an 8-m-long optical fibre. Here we report the experimental demonstration of Raman lasing in a compact, all-silicon, waveguide cavity on a single silicon chip. This demonstration represents an important step towards producing practical continuous-wave optical amplifiers and lasers that could be integrated with other optoelectronic components onto CMOS-compatible silicon chips.     

高稳定单频Brillouin光纤激光器的研究

单频布里渊（Brillouin）光纤激光器结构紧凑,性能稳定,并且对Brillouin泵浦光具有线宽窄化和噪声抑制作用.在光纤传感、高精度频谱分析和微波光子学等领域有着重要应用前景.本文利用可调谐半导体激光器（TLS）作为Brillouin泵浦光制备了单频Brillouin光纤激光器.实验发现当Brillouin增益介质光纤的长度缩短到10.3m时,谐振腔的自由光谱范围变为20.1MHz与模光纤的Brillouin增益带宽相近,此时Brillouin激光表现为单纵模振荡.实验结果还表明该光纤激光器的功率转化斜率为43.6%,激光输出的强度涨落低于4%.单频Brillouin光纤激光器的信噪比与泵浦激光器的信噪比提高近10dB以上,并具有很好的噪声抑制作用,该激光器输出线宽小于5kHz.     

846 nm半导体激光器线宽压窄的研究

研制了用于倍频蓝光的单模、可调谐的窄线宽光栅外腔反馈半导体激光器,它是由激光器底座、激光管组件、准直透镜组件和光栅组成.经过精密控制电流和温度,利用光栅反馈可获得激光单纵模输出,外腔的结构还使输出光的谱线宽度得以压窄.对研制的半导体激光器的特性测试表明,其输出功率稳定,阈值变小,模式单一稳定,波长可调谐,谱线宽度小于1 MHz.     

Phase-resolved measurements of stimulated emission in a laser

Lasers are usually described by their output frequency and intensity. However, laser operation is an inherently nonlinear process. Knowledge about the dynamic behaviour of lasers is thus of great importance for detailed understanding of laser operation and for improvement in performance for applications. Of particular interest is the time domain within the coherence time of the optical transition. This time is determined by the oscillation period of the laser radiation and thus is very short. Rigorous quantum mechanical models predict interesting effects like quantum beats, lasing without inversion, and photon echo processes. As these models are based on quantum coherence and interference, knowledge of the phase within the optical cycle is of particular interest. Laser radiation has so far been measured using intensity detectors, which are sensitive to the square of the electric field. Therefore information about the sign and phase of the laser radiation is lost. Here we use an electro-optic detection scheme to measure the amplitude and phase of stimulated radiation, and correlate this radiation directly with an input probing pulse. We have applied this technique to semiconductor quantum cascade lasers, which are coherent sources operating at frequencies between the optical (>100 THz) and electronic (<0.5 THz) ranges. In addition to the phase information, we can also determine the spectral gain, the bias dependence of this gain, and obtain an insight into the evolution of the laser field.     

Cavity QED with a Bose-Einstein condensate

Cavity quantum electrodynamics (cavity QED) describes the coherent interaction between matter and an electromagnetic field confined within a resonator structure, and is providing a useful platform for developing concepts in quantum information processing. By using high-quality resonators, a strong coupling regime can be reached experimentally in which atoms coherently exchange a photon with a single light-field mode many times before dissipation sets in. This has led to fundamental studies with both microwave and optical resonators. To meet the challenges posed by quantum state engineering and quantum information processing, recent experiments have focused on laser cooling and trapping of atoms inside an optical cavity. However, the tremendous degree of control over atomic gases achieved with Bose-Einstein condensation has so far not been used for cavity QED. Here we achieve the strong coupling of a Bose-Einstein condensate to the quantized field of an ultrahigh-finesse optical cavity and present a measurement of its eigenenergy spectrum. This is a conceptually new regime of cavity QED, in which all atoms occupy a single mode of a matter-wave field and couple identically to the light field, sharing a single excitation. This opens possibilities ranging from quantum communication to a wealth of new phenomena that can be expected in the many-body physics of quantum gases with cavity-mediated interactions.     

光纤延迟线对激光器线宽测量的影响及修正

针对延迟线长度对拍频测量法的影响进行了理论分析,并找出了延迟线长度不同时测量线宽和激光本征线宽的关系模型.在此基础上对自制的窄线宽光纤激光器纵模线宽进行了测量.使用消除延迟线长度对线宽测量的影响的数据修正方法,得到的激光器的本征线宽为5.74 kHz.之后将实测数据分别与利用该方法得到的功率谱线型和标准洛伦兹线型进行比较,证明这种修正方法能够更准确的反映激光通过延迟线后的线型.     

A frequency comb in the extreme ultraviolet

Since 1998, the interaction of precision spectroscopy and ultrafast laser science has led to several notable accomplishments. Femtosecond laser optical frequency 'combs' (evenly spaced spectral lines) have revolutionized the measurement of optical frequencies and enabled optical atomic clocks. The same comb techniques have been used to control the waveform of ultrafast laser pulses, which permitted the generation of single attosecond pulses, and have been used in a recently demonstrated 'oscilloscope' for light waves. Here we demonstrate intra-cavity high harmonic generation in the extreme ultraviolet, which promises to lead to another joint frontier of precision spectroscopy and ultrafast science. We have generated coherent extreme ultraviolet radiation at a repetition frequency of more than 100 MHz, a 1,000-fold improvement over previous experiments. At such a repetition rate, the mode spacing of the frequency comb, which is expected to survive the high harmonic generation process, is large enough for high resolution spectroscopy. Additionally, there may be many other applications of such a quasi-continuous compact and coherent extreme ultraviolet source, including extreme ultraviolet holography, microscopy, nanolithography and X-ray atomic clocks.     

全光纤激光器中光栅作为腔镜的特点研究

选用介质膜作谐振腔镜,光纤激光器就缺乏有效的选频机制,使得输出激光线宽较宽,纵模频率和输出功率不够稳定;而光纤光栅作为激光器的谐振腔镜,可以得到稳定的窄线宽激光输出.通过对光纤光栅的形成机理和布拉格光栅选频原理分析,得到双布拉格光纤光栅线型谐振腔的理论.光纤光栅谐振腔的长度与光纤光栅中心波长满足S=(2m-1)λmax...     

Rayleigh backscattering: a method to highly compress laser linewidth

Ultra-narrow linewidth laser with several hun- dred hertz at room temperature has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years and played a critical role in both optical sensing and communication fields. In this paper, a new method based on Rayleigh backscattering to highly compress the laser linewidth was proposed and demon- strated theoretically and experimentally. By theoretical analysis and simulation, Rayleigh backscattering can be collected in any waveguide structure and all wave bands, which could have a revolutionary impact on the field of laser. A single-longitudinal mode fiber ring laser with 130-Hz linewidth was achieved with self-injection feed- back structure at normal atmospheric temperature. The linewidth compression based on Rayleigh backscattering lies in the fact that laser linewidth after scattering is narrower than that of incident light in high Rayleigh scattering structure. The self-rejection feedback method expanding free spectra range of laser cavity simultaneously was used to further suppress the mode-hopping and stabilizing output. Experimental results showed that the laser linewidth can be easily narrowed to hundreds of hertz with side-mode suppression up to 75 dB. This agrees with the theoretical analysis and simulation results qualitatively.