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Fabricating Miniature Laser Frequency Combs in Minutes

Laser frequency combs are high-precision tools for measuring different colors of light in applications ranging from advanced atomic clocks to medical diagnostics. Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) can now make the core of a miniature frequency comb in one minute, whereas traditional microfabrication techniques may take hours, days, or weeks. In this video, NIST physicist Scott Papp describes the process, which involves machining a piece of quartz to produce a small, smooth disk within which light can circulate. The size and shape of this optical cavity, or resonator, can be controlled by the user. "We make a resonator in one minute, and one minute after that we are making a frequency comb," says Papp.

Topics:
Diagnostics Lasers & Laser Systems Lighting Manufacturing & Prototyping Measuring Instruments Medical Optics Photonics RF & Microwave Electronics Test & Measurement

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    Transcript

    00:00:07 we've developed a new technique to create um micro resonators tiny little Optical cavities which can confine light uh into a very small volume these resonators actually have a pretty wide range of uses so here at nist we use them for basic Optical frequency Metrology we use them as a as part of a new technique to create very small physical size Optical frequency Combs so

    00:00:35 an optical frequency comb is is a very precise ruler for measuring light frequencies and also for measuring uh the very short Optical pulses of of light and uh the the comb is composed of of many many teeth okay so different colors of light and what's really special is that the teeth are all spaced by an exact amount so the spacing from one teeth to the next is always the same

    00:01:03 and it's uh always controlled very to a very very high level yeah so traditional frequency comb technology has been based on um mode locked ftoc so very short pulse lasers but these tend to be kind of tabletop size so the whole system takes up you know a a few square feet on an and so what we've been working on at nist is uh developing frequency comb Technology based on tiny little

    00:01:31 millimeter scale pieces of glass and only a low power laser and when we send that laser into the the small volume of glass uh a whole range of new frequencies are generated and that that creates the basic form of the frequency comb yeah so what you're seeing in this video is is really the full fabrication technique so we have a piece of this fuse quartz glass material which only

    00:01:55 costs a few pennies and it's being held in a um very simple lathe and and what we use what you're seeing now is uh the carbon dioxide laser is focused down onto the surface of the glass and it's actually heating the glass up so much that the material is evaporating away and this is very much like um Machining metal on a metal working lathe except for we're using the

    00:02:21 carbon dioxide laser as the kind of the tool to shape the glass surface and the result is U very high quality Factor micro cavities that we can create in under 1 minute so one of the unique aspects of our fabrication technique is the control of the resonator size and for our work at n this means that we can make frequency Combs now with a very wide range of spacings um this is and

    00:02:50 this is something that's not possible with traditional comb technology which yeah so as you see in the video we can make these micro cavity devices in less than one minute and what's really exci exciting is that it only takes us an extra minute after that to start making a an entire frequency comb you know this could be a kind of a frequency standard and but a standard that doesn't have to

    00:03:12 exist just at nist it could get you know go outside of the lab to the places that really need um to make these kind of measurements instead of having to bring them always to nist