Kevin Knabe , Karl Tillman , Andrew

Submitted for the DAMOP07 Meeting of The American Physical Society Sorting Category: 1.1 (E) Near-IR frequency comb to characterize acetylenefilled fiber-based frequency references1 KRISTAN L. CORWIN, RAJESH THAPA, KEVIN KNABE, KARL TILLMAN, ANDREW JONES, BRIAN R. WASHBURN, Kansas State University, JEFFREY W. NICHOLSON, MAN F. YAN, OFS Laboratories — Optical frequency combs have revolutionized the field of optical frequency metrology. Typically Ti:sapphire lasers form the basis of these combs, but Cr:forsterite offers an interesting alternative in the near-IR, lasing at ∼1250 nm, and broadened in a highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF) to span an octave between 1020 and 2040 nm. We have demonstrated the first self-referenced Cr:forsterite laser that uses prisms for dispersion compensation, and observe narrower carrier-envelope offset beatnotes than in the case of the first Cr:forsterite laser to be self-referenced [1]. We will use this comb to characterize optical frequency references based on acetylene-filled hollow photonic bandgap optical fibers. Furthermore, we have developed a simplified technique for observing sub-Doppler features in these fibers, called a “reflected pump” technique, and compare it to more conventional methods. [1] K. Kim et al., “Stabilized frequency comb with a self-referenced femtosecond Cr:forsterite laser,” Opt. Lett., 30, 932 (2005). 1This work is supported by the NSF award No. ECS-0449295 and by the AFOSR, award No. FA9550-05-1-0304. X Prefer Oral Session Prefer Poster Session Kristan Corwin [email protected] Kansas State University Date submitted: 02 Feb 2007 Electronic form version 1.4