Optical Science and Engineering ETDs

Publication Date

Fall 8-20-2019

Abstract

The focus of this dissertation is the development and investigation of nested cavity mode-locked lasers and their resultant tailored frequency combs. A nested cavity is made up of two cavities, known as parents. One parent is a larger, active, 100MHz Ti:Saph oscillator and the other is a smaller, passive, 7GHz Fabry-Perot Etalon (FPE). Unlike standard frequency combs that are continuous, a tailored comb’s teeth are distributed in equally spaced groups where the center of each group corresponds to the resonance of the FPE and the side bands are determined by the resonances of the Ti:Saph. This unique coupling of the MHz and GHz resonances opens the door to a wide variety of applications.

One such application is the enhancement of Intracavity Phase Interferometry (IPI). IPI is a technique in which two pulses propagate within a shared active oscillator. These pulses experience a difference in phase, which results in a frequency comb shift relative to one another. The beat-note signal is measured when the two pulses are interfered and can be resolved at less than a kHz value with Hz resolution. Nested cavities were introduced into this technique to further enhance the beat-note signal. While this dissertation will focus on IPI as it relates to gyroscopes, it has also been demonstrated in magnetic field and nonlinear index measurements.

The successful demonstration of IPI enhancement, along with the characterization and stability of tailored combs, are presented and discussed.

Degree Name

Optical Science and Engineering

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Optical Science and Engineering

First Committee Member (Chair)

Jean-Claude Diels

Second Committee Member

Wolfgang Rudolph

Third Committee Member

Elohim Becerra

Fourth Committee Member

Ladan Arissian

Fifth Committee Member

R. Jason Jones

Keywords

Optics, Laser, Ultra-fast, Interferometry, Frequency Combs, Sensing, Tailored Frequency Combs, Nested Cavities

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

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