Testing ultrafast mode-locking at microhertz relative optical linewidth

Abstract

We report new limits on the phase coherence of the ultrafast mode-locking process in an octave-spanning Ti:sapphire comb. We find that the mode-locking mechanism correlates optical phase across a full optical octave with less than 2.5 micro Hz relative linewidth. This result is at least two orders of magnitude below recent predictions for quantum-limited individual comb-mode linewidths, verifying that the mode-locking mechanism strongly correlates quantum noise across the comb spectrum.

Expanded discussion to include correlated noise terms, made minor formatting changes, added a reference, and fixed typographical errors. 10 pages, 5 figures