July 2019
Spotlight Summary by David F. Philips and Ronald L. Walsworth
30 GHz electro-optic frequency comb spanning 300 THz in the near infrared and visible
An electro-optically (EO) modulated CW laser is at the heart of a new 30 GHz line-spacing, 300 THz bandwidth, laser frequency comb with diverse applications, including astrophysical spectrograph calibration. Laser frequency combs (LFCs) have found an abundance of applications, including: optical spectroscopy, arbitrary waveform synthesis, optical coherence tomography, and astrophysical spectrograph calibration. For many of these uses, high repetition-rate LFCs are essential, as they allow individual LFC spectral lines to be resolvable with lower resolution instruments, and they have lower peak power for fixed average power, which can reduce sample damage in some applications. In the present work by A. J. Metcalf and co-workers, a 30 GHz LFC is produced from a 1064 nm CW laser that is passed through multiple stages of EO modulation. After two stages of compression and fiber-based spectral broadening, this system produces supercontinuum light spanning 800-1350 nm. This output can be frequency doubled to produce comb light from 450-620 nm, a wavelength range particularly useful for astrophysical spectrograph calibration.
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Article Information
30 GHz electro-optic frequency comb spanning 300 THz in the near infrared and visible
Andrew J. Metcalf, Connor D. Fredrick, Ryan C. Terrien, Scott B. Papp, and Scott A. Diddams
Opt. Lett. 44(11) 2673-2676 (2019) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF