Abstract
Frequency coupling between the counter-propagating pulses inside a femtosecond ring laser gyroscope is studied. It is shown that frequency lock-in results from the counter-propagating pulses overlapping at or near a scattering surface. Nonetheless, the absence of lock-in with a scatterer at the pulse crossing point is demonstrated for the special case of symmetric scattering. The decoupling of the counter-propagating pulses makes possible the measurement of non-reciprocal phase differences of 10−5 and index differences of 10−10 over 1 cm. Besides measuring rotations, applications are found in the measurement of small changes in the index of refraction, and electrical transients on the 100 fs time scale.
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Prof. F. P. Schäfer on the occasion of his 65th birthday.
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Diddams, S., Atherton, B. & Diels, J.C. Frequency locking and unlocking in a femtosecond ring laser with application to intracavity phase measurements. Appl. Phys. B 63, 473–480 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01828943
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01828943