An accurate and robust metrological network for coherent optical frequency dissemination

Abstract

We introduce multi-branch repeater laser stations (MLSs) for the dissemination of an ultra-stable signal from one point to multiple users and the simultaneous evaluation of the stability and accuracy of multiple links. We perform the study of the noise floor of this new instrument. We present then an optical fiber network of 4800 km built with three MLSs and 13 repeater laser stations (RLSs). We show the multi-user optical frequency dissemination on four links totalizing 2198 km with uncertainties below 1.1 × 10 ^−19 . The robustness of the network over two years is presented and stability and accuracy at 10 ^7 seconds integration time are finally showed.

Keywords

• frequency transfer
• metrology
• fiber optic links
• laser optics
• interferometer