Cancellation of laser dither modulation from optical frequency standards

We demonstrate the removal of the dither modulation from an iodine-stabilized He-Ne laser by using a frequency-modulated acousto-optic modulator and feed-forward techniques. This procedure reduces the linewidth of the beat between this laser and a flywheel He-Ne laser from 6 MHz to 8 kHz, the undithered beat linewidth being ~7 kHz. Dither suppression greatly reduces counter errors during beat measurements from stroboscopic effects between the counter's gate and the frequency of the dither modulation and increases the utility of the already formidable array of dithered laser frequency standards by making locking to them an easier task.