Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal on - IEEE Xplore

IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. 9, NO. 4, JULY/AUGUST 2003

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Introduction to the Issue on Stabilization of Mode-Locked Lasers

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URING the last few years, there have been remarkable advances in stabilizing mode-locked lasers. A key to this is considering the pulse train emitted by the laser as an amplitudemodulated coherent optical carrier. In the frequency domain, this corresponds to a comb of discrete equidistant lines, rather than the continuum spectrum of an isolated pulse. The stabilization is then enabled by applying the techniques developed for frequency stabilization of continuous wave (CW) lasers. However, reduction of timing jitter is also important for achieving full control of the comb spectrum. Timing jitter in mode-locked lasers has been the subject of extensive ongoing work, although the applications and motivations are often quite different from those enabled by the development of stable combs. This special issue of the IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS attempts to bring together papers on all issues of stabilization mode-locked lasers, including both the comb and jitter stabilization techniques and the applications that are enabled by them. This is the first special issue on this topic. The 13 papers in this issue are loosely divided into the following three categories: • carrier-envelope phase stabilization; • optical frequency metrology and optical atomic clocks; • synchronization of mode-locked lasers.

It is our hope that this special issue will help with cross fertilization between these areas and at the same time document the current status of this field, thus providing a useful reference and helping to promote further advances in the field.

STEVEN T. CUNDIFF JILA, University of Colorado Boulder, CO 80309–0440 USA BRIAN T. KOLNER University of California, Davis Davis, CA 95616 USA PAUL CORKUM National Research Council Canada Ottawa, ON K1A OR6 Canada SCOTT A. DIDDAMS National Institute of Standards and Technology Boulder, CO 80305 USA HARALD R. TELLE Physikalisch Technische Bundesanstalt Braunschweig 38116 Germany

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSTQE.2003.819318

Steven T. Cundiff (M’98) received the B.A. degree in physics from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, in 1985. In 1992, he received the Ph.D. degree in applied physics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He worked for two years at SciTec, Inc., Princeton, NJ, prior to graduate school. In 1993 and 1994, he was a von Humboldt post-doctoral Fellow at Philipps University, Marburg, Germany. He was a post-doctoral Member of Technical Staff in the Advanced Photonics Research Department, Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, Holmdel, NJ, from 1995 to 1997. Currently, he is a Physicist in the Quantum Physics Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and a Fellow of JILA, a joint institute between NIST and the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is also an Adjoint Faculty Member in the Department of Physics and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Colorado.

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Brian H. Kolner (M’01) received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering in 1979 from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, in electrical engineering in 1981 and 1985, respectively. From 1985 to 1991, he was a Member of the Technical Staff at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, CA, where he worked on high-speed electronic and optoelectronic devices and measurement techniques using ultrashort laser pulses. In 1991, he joined the Electrical Engineering Department, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and became Vice Chairman for Undergraduate Affairs in 1993. At UCLA, he taught courses in microwave measurements, Fourier optics, and quantum mechanics, and conducted research in space-time duality and temporal imaging. In 1996, he moved to the University of California, Davis, where he holds joint appointments in the Departments of Applied Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering. He teaches laser physics, electromagnetic theory, and optics and his current research interests include temporal imaging, laser phase and amplitude noise, pecision clocks and oscillators, and terahertz spectroscopy. Dr. Kolner was awarded a David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship in 1991 and in 1996 he served as Guest Editor for the IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS. He is a member of the Optical Society of America.

Paul Corkum started his career as a Theoretical Physicist but changed to Experimental Physicist when he arrived at the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada in 1973. At NRC he concentrated first on laser physics and then in using femtosecond laser for study physics and later in using femtosecond laser for studying light matter interactions. He is best known for introducing many concepts of strong field atomic and molecular science and for proposing how atomic and molecular gases can be used to produce even shorter optical pulses. He is a Program Leader of the femtosecond science group at NRC. Dr. Corkum is a member of the Royal Society of Canada and a recipient of the Canadian Association of Physicists Gold Medal for lifetime achievement in physics and received the Royal Societies of Canada’s 2003 Tory Medal.

Scott A. Diddams was born in Gallup, NM, in 1967. He received the B.A. degree in physics from Bethel College, St. Paul, MN, in 1989 and the Ph.D. degree in optical science from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, in 1996. Between 1996 and 2000, he did postdoctoral work at JILA, a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado, where he was supported in part by a National Research Council fellowship. Currently, he works as a Staff Physicist in the Time and Frequency Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Boulder, CO, where his research interests include the fields of nonlinear optics, ultrafast lasers and phenomena, and precision spectroscopy and metrology.


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Harald R. Telle was born in Duderstadt, Germany, in 1951. He received the diploma degree in physics from University of Hannover, Germany, in 1978. He completed the Ph.D. degree in physics in 1982 at University of Bauteuth, Germany. His thesis was awarded by the Emil-Warburg-Stiftung for outstanding research on ultrafast Raman spectroscopy. In 1983, he began work on laser diode stabilization, four-wave mixing, and optical frquency measurement at Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Braunschweig, Germany. He is currently working on ultrafast optoelectronic measurement techniques for high bit-rate communication systems.