A frequency measurement system for dual frequency He-Ne lasers is set up based on an external cavity diode laser locked to fiber femtosecond optical frequency comb using an Rb clock as a frequency standard. The frequencies of the Zeeman split orthogonal polarized lasers are measured by beating with the locked diode laser at the same time. Locking the diode laser to the 1 894 449th comb tooth, the absolute frequency of the diode laser is 473 612 190 000.0 (2.4) kHz, with a relative frequency uncertainty of 5.1×10^-12. A commercial dual frequency He-Ne laser is measured to test the system, and the results show that the mean absolute frequencies of the horizontal polarized laser and the vertical polarized laser are 473 612 229 934 kHz and 473 612 232 111 kHz, respectively, with a relative Allan deviation of 5.2× 10^-11 at 1 024 s, and the mean split frequency is 2.177 MHz with a standard deviation of 2 kHz.

Date Published: 20 November 2012
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 8563, Optical Metrology and Inspection for Industrial Applications II, 856316 (20 November 2012); doi: 10.1117/12.999955

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8563:
Optical Metrology and Inspection for Industrial Applications II
Kevin G. Harding; Peisen S. Huang; Toru Yoshizawa, Editor(s)