Laboratoire Charles Fabry

https://www.lcf.institutoptique.fr/lcf-en Category: Research or metrology institute

Activities Time-Frequency:

Workforce: 3with: 2 permanents, 1 non-permanent

PALAISEAU, France

Laboratoire Charles Fabry (LCF) is a joint research laboratory established by Institut d'Optique ? Graduate School and the French national research agency CNRS with Université Paris-Saclay as a cooperating institution. The research themes at LCF covers a broad spectrum of topics in photonics and its applications, from quantum optics to image physics, with a strong experimental component. LCF is composed of about forty researchers and professors, as much technicians and engineers, and about sixty PhD students and post-doctoral researchers.
The LCF activities that fall within the scope of FIRST-TF are those conducted within the LASERS group on optically-pumped semiconductor sources. We design and validate the laser active structures; we study the properties of these lasers in the context of metrology (spectrum, noises, tunability, ...). We are involved in the development of dual-frequency lasers dedicated to high-performance CPT atomic clocks.

Expertise :

  • Oscillators
    • Optical oscillators, lasers
      • Lasers locked to a Fabry-PĂ©rot cavity• Laser stabilization on ultra-stable cavity
      • Laser sources• Optically-pumped Vertical External Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers - single- and dual-frequency operation
        Characterization of active structures, laser performances and spectral stabilization.
  • Atomic references
    • Micro-wave clocks and subsystems
      • Coherent population trapping (CPT) clocks
  • Specific methods of time-frequency metrology
    • Noise
      • Phase noise, PLL• Laser phase locking on ultra-stable cavity
      • Intensity noise• Noise intensity measurements of laser sources, softwares and modelingCorrelation measurements
    • Systematics, Accuracy, Calibration
      • Systematics in atom-light interaction• Light-induced interactions as a limitation of atomic sensor
    • High resolution spetroscopy
      • Atomic spectroscopy• Microwave spectroscopy and manipulations of atoms (Rydberg atoms, hyperfine transition)
  • Techniques for time-frequency metrology and applications
    • Electronics
      • Analog electronics• Design and realization of controllers for stabilized laser sources
        Wavelenght or intensity laser feedback control
        Acousto-optic drivers
        Lock-in amplifiers
      • Digital electronics• PIC and ARDUINO microcontrolers
      • Acquisition, interfaces, converters• Instruments management in PYTHON language. GUI use the GTK graphical library.
    • Mechanics, Ultra-high vacuum, Cryogenics• Ultra-vacuum system for cold atom trapping
    • Optics
      • Guided optics, specific optical fibres• Welding of special fibres, control of fibres
      • Control of the optical beam characteristics• Study of waveplanes from laser sources
    • Cooling or trapping techniques
      • Cooling, trapping of atoms• Laser cooling, magnetic and optical trapping, optical tweezers
    • Interferometry techniques
      • Atom interferometry techniques• Ramsey interferometry, Bragg diffraction with matter wave

Connected Sectors:

FIRST-TF Network