Development of a compact, transportable and fibered laser frequency stabilization system

This PhD reports on the development of a transportable iodine frequency stabilized laser setup, based on compact and fibered Telecom components with a TRL. This laser system is an ultra-stable frequency reference for the assembly, integration, validation and tests (AIVT) of the payload of the LISA mission as part of the SYRTE laboratory contribution to the French activities carried out by a consortium of several partners lead by the French Space Agency (CNES). The compact design of the whole setup will make it easily transportable and can be readily used on different sites.

The solution delivered by the SYRTE to the CNES comprises two Nd:YAG lasers phase locked on each other, with the master itself being phase locked on a frequency reference. The frequency reference is a telecom fiber laser which frequency has beean tripled using non-linear optics and frequency locked to a hyperfine transition of an iodine vapour. The frequency residual noise of this setup is in the 10⁻¹⁴ range below 30 s in terms of Allan standard deviation. Its optical setup fits in 30 L and it has proven to be transportable.

ultrastable laser, non-linear optics, transportable laser, compact laser, fiber laser, frequency reference, LISA

Full document (FR) : HAL-04511838