Laser with 7×10−18 stability
Abstract
We report a laser with record frequency stability, based on a 21 cm cryogenic silicon cavity. For best short-term stability, the cavity operates at 6 K to minimize Brownian thermal noise and achieves a fractional stability of 7×10−18 between 2 to 50 s of averaging time and 2.5 mHz linewidth. For best long-term stability the cavity operates at 16 K, where silicon has a zero-crossing of thermal expansion. Slightly increased thermal noise limits the performance to 9×10−18, consistent with the expected temperature scaling, but the long-term performance is improved. The laser then has a linewidth of 2.9 mHz and long-term frequency drift less than 4 μHz s−1. The laser is used to enhance the performance of a state-of-the-art Sr lattice clock, operating with Rabi and Ramsey interrogation times beyond 10 s.
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BibTeX
@misc{lewis2026laser,
title = {{Laser with $7\times10^-18$ stability}},
author = {Ben Lewis and Zoey Z. Hu and Dahyeon Lee and Kyungtae Kim and William Warfield and Kai Zhou and Daniele Nicolodi and Thomas Legero and Uwe Sterr and Fritz Riehle and Jun Ye},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.30532},
eprint = {2610.30532},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.30532},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Laser with 7×10^−18 stability
AU - Ben Lewis
AU - Zoey Z. Hu
AU - Dahyeon Lee
AU - Kyungtae Kim
AU - William Warfield
AU - Kai Zhou
AU - Daniele Nicolodi
AU - Thomas Legero
AU - Uwe Sterr
AU - Fritz Riehle
AU - Jun Ye
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/21
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.30532
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.30532
AB - We report a laser with record frequency stability, based on a 21 cm cryogenic silicon cavity. For best short-term stability, the cavity operates at 6 K to minimize Brownian thermal noise and achieves a fractional stability of 7×10^−18 between 2 to 50 s of averaging time and 2.5 mHz linewidth. For best long-term stability the cavity operates at 16 K, where silicon has a zero-crossing of thermal expansion. Slightly increased thermal noise limits the performance to 9×10^−18, consistent with the expected temperature scaling, but the long-term performance is improved. The laser then has a linewidth of 2.9 mHz and long-term frequency drift less than 4 μHz s^−1. The laser is used to enhance the performance of a state-of-the-art Sr lattice clock, operating with Rabi and Ramsey interrogation times beyond 10 s.
ER -