Related papers: Frequency stability of a wavelength meter and appl…
The blooming of attosecond science (1 as = $10^{-18}$ s) has raised the need to exquisitely control the delay between two ultrashort light pulses, one of them being intense and in the visible spectral range, while the second is weak and in…
We present a detailed analysis of the end-user performance of the metrological signal at 1542 nm disseminated by the French national fibre network Refimeve, about 1000 km from the source. By the mean of a local ultrastable laser at 729 nm…
Compact interferometers, called phasemeters, make it possible to operate over a large range while ensuring a high resolution. Such performance is required for the stabilization of large instruments dedicated to experimental physics such as…
We present a stabilized microwave-frequency transfer technique that is based on optical phase-sensing and optical phase-actuation. This technique shares several attributes with optical-frequency transfer and therefore exhibits several…
As a consequence of a general trend in the physics of oscillators and clocks towards optics, phase and frequency metrology is rapidly moving to optics too. Yet, optics is not replacing the traditional radio-frequency (RF) and microwave…
The use of averaging has long been known to reduce noise in statistically independent systems that exhibit similar levels of stochastic fluctuation. This concept of averaging is general and applies to a wide variety of physical and man-made…
High finesse Fabry-Perot(FP) cavity is a very important frequency reference for laser stabiliza- tion, and is widely used for applications such as precision measurement, laser cooling of ions or molecules. But the non-linear response of the…
Space-based gravitational wave detectors, such as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), use picometer-precision laser interferometry to detect gravitational waves at frequencies from 1 Hz down to below 0.1 mHz. Laser…
Inter satellite laser interferometry is a central component of future space-borne gravity instruments like LISA, eLISA, NGO and future geodesy missions. The inherently small laser wavelength allows to measure distance variations with…
We report on the development of a sapphire cryogenic microwave resonator oscillator long-term fractional frequency stability of 2x10^-17Sqrt[\tau] for integration times \tau>10^3 s and negative drift of about 2.2x10^-15/day. The short-term…
We describe a coherent mid-infrared continuum source with 700 cm-1 usable bandwidth, readily tuned within 600 - 2500 cm-1 (4 - 17 \mum) and thus covering much of the infrared "fingerprint" molecular vibration region. It is based on…
Interferometric gravitational-wave detectors like LIGO need to be able to measure changes in their arm lengths of order $10^{-18}~$m or smaller. This requires very high laser power in order to raise the signal above shot noise. One…
Laser frequency stabilization is notably one of the major challenges on the way to a space-borne gravitational wave observatory. The proposed Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is presently under development in an ESA, NASA…
We measure the motional fluctuations of a micromechanical mirror using a Michelson interferometer, and demonstrate its interferometric stability. The position stability of the micromirror is dominated by the thermal mechanical noise of the…
To meet the strain sensitivity requirements [1], [2] of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), the laser frequency and amplitude noise must initially be reduced by a factor of 1000 in the pre-stabilized portion of…
We describe the design, construction, and characterization of a medium-finesse Fabry-P\'erot cavity for simultaneous frequency stabilization of two lasers operating at 960 and 780 nm wavelengths, respectively. The lasers are applied in…
Quantum noise limits the sensitivity of precision measurement devices, such as laser interferometer gravitational-wave observatories and axion detectors. In the shot-noise-limited regime, these resonant detectors are subject to a trade-off…
We report on the demonstration and characterization of a silicon optical resonator for laser frequency stabilization, operating in the deep cryogenic regime at temperatures as low as 1.5 K. Robust operation was achieved, with absolute…
We report the dissemination of an ultrastable optical frequency signal to two distant users simultaneously using a branching network. The ultrastable signal is extracted along a main fibre link; it is optically tracked with a…
We study in detail a peculiar configuration of the Talbot-Lau matter wave interferometer, characterised by unequal distances between the two diffraction gratings and the observation plane. We refer to this apparatus as the "asymmetric…