关键词: 超稳腔/
超低膨胀系数/
精细度/
光钟
English Abstract
Self-reliance and independently developed high-finesse spherical ultrastable optical reference cavity
Liu Jun1,2,Chen Bo-Xiong3,
Xu Guan-Jun2,
Cui Xiao-Xu3,
Bai Bo3,
Zhang Lin-Bo2,
Chen Long2,
Jiao Dong-Dong2,
Wang Tao3,
Liu Tao2,
Dong Rui-Fang2,
Zhang Shou-Gang2
1.University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;
2.National Time Service Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Time and Frequency Stardard Laboratory, Xi'an 710600, China;
3.Avic Xi'an Fight Automatic Control Research Institute, Xi'an 710065, China
Fund Project:Project supported by the Special Fund for Research on National Major Research Instruments and Facilities of the National Natural Science Fundation of China (Grant No. 61127901), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11273024, 61025023), and the Young Scientists Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11403031).Received Date:29 September 2016
Accepted Date:18 January 2017
Published Online:05 April 2017
Abstract:Ultra-stable reference cavity with high finesse is a crucial component in a narrow-linewidth laser system which is widely used in time and frequency metrology, the test of Lorentz invariance, and measure of gravitational wave. In this paper, we report the recent progress of the self-made spherical reference cavity, aiming at the future space application. The main function of cavity is the reference of ultra-stable laser, which is the local reference oscillation source of space optical clock.The diameter of the designed spherical cavity spacer made of ultra-low expansion glass is 80 mm, and the cavity length is 78 mm, flat-concave mirrors configuration, and the radius of the concave mirror is 0.5 m. The support structure is designed to have two 3.9 mm-radius spherical groves located at the poles of the sphere along the diameter direction (defined as support axis), and a 53 angle between the support axis and the optical axis. The mechanic vibration sensitivities of the cavity along and perpendicular to the optical axis are both calculated by finite element analysis method to be below 110-10/g. Five-axis linkage CNC machining sphere forming technology is applied to S80 mm spherical surface processing with spherical contour degree up to 0.02. After a three-stage surface polishing processes, the fused silicamirror substratessurface roughness is measured to be less than 0.2 nm (rms). Implementing double ion beam sputtering technique for mirror coating, the reflection of the coating achieves a reflectivity of 99.999% and a loss of 4 ppm for 698 nm laser. The coating surface roughness is measured to be 0.3 nm (rms). The cavity spacer and the mirror are bonded by dried optical contact. In order to improve the thermal noise characteristics of the cavity, an ultra low expansion ring is contacted optically to the outer surface of the mirror.The cavity is characterized by ring-down spectroscopy, and the finesse is around 195000. With the help of a home-made 698 nm ultra narrow line-width laser, the cavity line-width is measured to be 9.8 kHz by sweeping cavity method. A 698 nm semiconductor laser is locked to this spherical cavity by PDH technology, and the cavity loss is measured to be5 ppm.
Keywords: ultra-stable cavity/
ultra low expansion/
finesse/
optical clock
