Two-photon Optical Frequency Reference with Active ac Stark Shift Cancellation

V. Gerginov and K. Beloy

Phys. Rev. Applied 10, 014031 – Published 30 July 2018

Abstract

An optical reference based on a two-photon optical transition with ac Stark shift cancellation is proposed. The reference uses two interrogating laser fields at different frequencies. Compared to conventional optical two-photon references, the new approach offers the possibility for improved short-term stability resulting from a higher signal-to-noise ratio and improved long-term stability due to active ac Stark shift cancellation. We demonstrate the ac Stark shift cancellation method on the $5 s^{2} S_{1 / 2} \to 5 d^{2} D_{5 / 2}$ two-photon transition in $^{87} Rb$ .

Received 5 April 2018
Revised 18 May 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.10.014031

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Atomic, optical & lattice clocks Frequency combs & self-phase locking Metrology Stark effect Time & frequency standards

Alkali metals

Laser techniques Optical absorption spectroscopy

Atomic, Molecular & Optical

Authors & Affiliations

V. Gerginov^1,2,* and K. Beloy²

¹Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
²Time and Frequency Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305, USA