Simple iodine reference at 1064 nm for absolute laser frequency determination in space applications

Appl Opt. 2010 Nov 10;49(32):6264-7. doi: 10.1364/AO.49.006264.

Abstract

Using an iodine cell with fixed gas pressure, we built a simple frequency reference at 1064 nm with 10 MHz absolute accuracy and used it to demonstrate deterministic phase locking between two single-frequency lasers. The reference was designed to be as simple as possible, and it does not use a cooler or frequency modulator. This system should be useful, especially for space interferometric missions such as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna.