Avoiding Aliasing in Allan Variance: an Application to Fiber Link Data Analysis

Optical fiber links are known as the most performing tools to transfer ultrastable frequency reference signals. However, these signals are affected by phase noise up to bandwidths of several kilohertz and a careful data processing strategy is required to properly estimate the uncertainty. This aspect is often overlooked and a number of approaches have been proposed to implicitly deal with it. Here, we face this issue in terms of aliasing and show how typical tools of signal analysis can be adapted to the evaluation of optical fiber links performance. In this way, it is possible to use the Allan variance as estimator of stability and there is no need to introduce other estimators. The general rules we derive can be extended to all optical links. As an example, we apply this method to the experimental data we obtained on a 1284 km coherent optical link for frequency dissemination, which we realized in Italy

Accuracy of an Atomic Microwave Power Standard

We have built an atomic microwave power standard based on the electromagnetic interaction with laser-cooled atoms. The atoms traversed a waveguide transmission line, and under the effect of the radiation, the internal state populations underwent a Rabi flopping oscillation. Measurement of the oscillation frequency allowed the determination of the incident microwave power. As many of 60 oscillations were observed over a dynamic range of 20 dB and the standard deviation of the measurements was about 0.02%. The measured frequency was compared to a calculated one and an agreement of 1.3% with an uncertainty of 5% (rectangular) was found.Comment: 5 figure

Observation of quantum oscillations between a Josephson phase qubit and a microscopic resonator using fast readout

We have detected coherent quantum oscillations between Josephson phase qubits and microscopic critical-current fluctuators by implementing a new state readout technique that is an order of magnitude faster than previous methods. The period of the oscillations is consistent with the spectroscopic splittings observed in the qubit's resonant frequency. The results point to a possible mechanism for decoherence and reduced measurement fidelity in superconducting qubits and demonstrate the means to measure two-qubit interactions in the time domain

Temperature Dependence Cancellation of the Cs Clock Frequency in the Presence of Ne Buffer Gas

The temperature dependence of the Cs clock transition frequency in a vapor cell filled with Ne buffer gas has been measured. The experimental setup is based on the coherent population trapping (CPT) technique and a temporal Ramsey interrogation allowing a high resolution. A quadratic dependence of the frequency shift is shown. The temperature of the shift cancellation is evaluated. The actual Ne pressure in the cell is determined from the frequency shift of the 895nm optical transition. We can then determine the Cs-Ne collisional temperature coefficients of the clock frequency. These results can be useful for vapor cell clocks and especially for future micro-clocks

A tunable cavity-locked diode laser source for terahertz photomixing

An all solid-state approach to the precise frequency synthesis and control of widely tunable terahertz radiation by differencing continuous-wave diode lasers at 850 nm is reported in this paper. The difference frequency is synthesized by three fiber-coupled external-cavity laser diodes. Two of the lasers are Pound-Drever-Hall locked to different orders of a Fabry-Perot (FP) cavity, and the third is offset-frequency locked to the second of the cavity-locked lasers using a tunable microwave oscillator. The first cavity-locked laser and the offset-locked laser produce the difference frequency, whose value is accurately determined by the sum of an integer multiple of the free spectral range of the FP cavity and the offset frequency. The dual-frequency 850-nm output of the three laser system is amplified to 500 mW through two-frequency injection seeding of a single semiconductor tapered optical amplifier. As proof of precision frequency synthesis and control of tunability, the difference frequency is converted into a terahertz wave by optical-heterodyne photomixing in low-temperature-grown GaAs and used for the spectroscopy of simple molecules. The 3-dB spectral power bandwidth of the terahertz radiation is routinely observed to be ≾1 MHz. A simple, but highly accurate, method of obtaining an absolute frequency calibration is proposed and an absolute calibration of 10^(-7) demonstrated using the known frequencies of carbon monoxide lines between 0.23-1.27 THz