Fiber re-circulating emulator for precise 504-km optical frequency combs transmission

Area of Science:

• Physics
• Optical Engineering
• Metrology

Background:

• Optical frequency combs enable precise time-frequency transmission.
• Link dispersion limits the propagation distance for optical frequency combs.
• Long-haul transmission is crucial for applications like fiber-optic gyroscopes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To emulate and demonstrate long-haul optical frequency comb transmission over 504 km.
• To mitigate dispersion effects in fiber optic links for precise time-frequency dissemination.
• To assess the feasibility of this approach for large-scale applications.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a fiber re-circulating loop to simulate a 504-km transmission link.
• Employed an optical filter and dispersion compensation fiber to manage link dispersion.
• Measured residual instability of the time-frequency signal over the emulated link.

Main Results:

• Achieved residual instability of 4.0 × 10^-14 at 1 s and 7.32 × 10^-18 at 10,000 s over the 504-km link.
• Successfully demonstrated effective dispersion management for long-distance comb transmission.
• Validated the performance over an extended, emulated fiber optic link.

Conclusions:

• The developed method effectively overcomes dispersion limitations for long-haul optical frequency comb transmission.
• This technique meets the requirements for precise clock transmission and comparison in giant fiber-optic gyroscopes.
• The approach shows promise for seismic and gravitational potential detection using fiber-optic systems.