Embodiments herein describe peak detection techniques for selecting an absorption line to lock a spectroscopy laser in a frequency reference (e.g., an atomic clock). In one embodiment, an atomic reference is used which has many absorption lines within a relatively small frequency range (e.g., within a gain profile of the spectroscopy laser). The peak detection techniques can evaluate which of these lines a laser can be locked to. For example, the peak detection algorithm can define a preferred absorption line. But if for some reason the spectroscopy laser cannot be locked to the preferred absorption line, the peak detection technique has at least one backup absorption line. By having a set of candidate absorption lines, the peak detection algorithm can identify a suitable absorption line for lasers with different gain regions, or as gain regions change.

Optical soliton pulses are generated using a drive unit to provide pump light at a drive power, a passive optical waveguide ring resonator, a spectral filter in the passive optical waveguide ring resonator, and an output to optically couple optical solitons from the passive optical waveguide ring resonator. The drive power, a net group velocity dispersion (GVD) of the passive optical waveguide ring resonator, a frequency detuning parameter of the passive optical waveguide ring resonator, and the spectral filter are configured to generate one or more optical solitons.

A laser device includes an excitation light source, a resonator which receives excitation light from the excitation light source and generates laser light, an absorption cell to which the laser light is emitted, a light converter which converts the laser light passing through the absorption cell to a light output signal, a third order differential lock-in amplifier which generates a third order differential signal of the light output signal, and a controller. When a predetermined waveform of the third order differential signal is detected, the controller includes a return controller that determines a return direction of a resonator length based on the predetermined waveform and a resonator length controller that changes the resonator length to the return direction.

A two-stage laser stabilization method is described to simultaneously servo two coupled laser parameters that control the wavelength of a laser, such as the laser injection current and the laser temperature, in order to simultaneously stabilize the laser frequency and output power. Two error signals are generated by passing the laser light through a frequency discriminator, such as an atomic resonance, to generate two control loops for the two coupled laser parameters. A primary control loop servos the faster laser parameter, such as the laser injection current, by direct use of the error signal. A secondary slower control loop ensures that this said error signal will remain at zero, by controlling the second laser parameter, such as the laser temperature.

A method for compensating a reference frequency shift due to an interaction of resonant light provided by a resonant light source with atoms of an atomic beam crossing a resonant microwave cavity between light interaction zones includes toggling a wavelength of the provided resonant light between a main optical pumping transition, OPT1, and an alternate optical pumping transition, OPT2, of the atoms of the atomic beam while a frequency of the microwave probe signal fed into the microwave cavity is modulated with a frequency modulation depth, FMD. The method further includes computing a wavelength modulation compensation error signal, WM-CES depending on the measured signal amplitudes of Ramsey fringes used to control the frequency of the microwave probe signal fed into the microwave cavity.

The present invention addresses the problem of stabilizing signals in magnetic field measurement using optical pumping. In order to solve the problem, disclosed is a light source apparatus (10) that is characterized in having: a light intensity fluctuation detection circuit (130) that detects intensity fluctuation of light outputted from a laser output unit (11); and an acousto-optic modulator (121) that corrects light intensity on the basis of light intensity fluctuation detected by means of the light intensity fluctuation detection circuit (130) such that the light intensity is constant Furthermore, a magnetic field measuring apparatus of the present invention is characterized in having: one sensor unit that passes therethrough light outputted from a light source unit: and a signal control processor that eliminates the light intensity fluctuation on the basis of two lights passed through the sensor unit.

A device may include a first photodetector to generate a first current based on an optical power of an optical beam. The device may include a beam splitter to split a portion of the optical beam into a first beam and a second beam. The device may include a wavelength filter to filter the first beam and the second beam. The wavelength filter may filter the second beam differently than the first beam based on a difference between an optical path length of the first beam and an optical path length of the second beam through the wavelength filter. The device may include second and third photodetectors to respectively receive, after the wavelength filter, the first beam and the second beam and to generate respective second currents.

A tunable laser device includes a laser structure and a plurality of individually addressable, separated contact stripes disposed on the laser structure. The laser structure includes a substrate, an active portion disposed on the substrate, and a chirped distributed feedback (DFB) grating disposed on the active portion. The active portion includes at least top and bottom contact layers and a gain medium.

A laser-source assembly that is configured to illuminate a vacuum chamber containing atoms in the gaseous state so as to implement a cold-atom inertial sensor, the atoms having at least two fundamental levels that are separated by a fundamental frequency difference comprised between 1 and a few gigahertz, the assembly comprises: a master laser that emits a beam having a master frequency; a first control loop that is configured to stabilize the master frequency of the master laser on a frequency corresponding to half a set frequency of an atomic transition between a fundamental level and an excited level of the atoms; a slave laser that has a slave frequency; and a second control loop that is configured to stabilize the slave frequency of the slave laser with respect to the master frequency, the slave frequency being offset with respect to the master frequency successively, over time, by a first preset offset value, a second preset offset value, and a third preset offset value, the offset values being comprised in an interval equal to half the fundamental frequency difference plus or minus a few hundred MHz.

An apparatus is provided. The apparatus comprises: an optical resonator including a surface; wherein a Bragg grating is formed at least part of the surface of the optical resonator; and wherein the Bragg grating has a Bragg frequency substantially equal to a center frequency of an Nth order Brillouin gain region capable of generating an Nth order Stokes signal.