Shot-noise-limited few-cycle mid-infrared frequency comb with attosecond phase stability
Abstract
Achieving sub-cycle waveform control with attosecond-level precision while reaching shot-noise-limited amplitude stability in the mid-infrared spectral range remains a central challenge for ultrafast and precision optical science. Here, we demonstrate a fully stabilized, ultra-stable optical frequency comb (OFC) based on a Kerr-lens mode-locked Cr:ZnS laser operating at 2.3 μm. The oscillator delivers 40 fs pulses at a 25 MHz repetition rate, which are spectrally broadened to cover two octaves and compressed to a 1.4-cycle, 11 fs duration. Pumped by a custom low-noise erbium-doped fiber amplifier, the laser exhibits an integrated relative intensity noise (RIN) of 0.0026% over 10 Hz--1 MHz, while the noise of the few-cycle output is further suppressed to 0.0017% and reaches the shot-noise limit for Fourier frequencies above 5 kHz. It represents the lowest amplitude noise reported to date for any mode-locked laser. This unprecedented amplitude stability enables carrier-envelope phase (CEP) stabilization with a residual integrated phase noise of only 1.5 mrad (10 Hz--12.5 MHz), corresponding to a CEP jitter of 1.8 as, the highest phase stability for any laser system ever reported. The long-term performance of the fully stabilized OFC is measured over 24 hours, with a power stability of 0.01% and a residual CEP noise of 17 mrad. By combining few-cycle mid-infrared pulses with shot-noise-limited intensity noise and attosecond-level phase stability, the reported OFC provides access to new regimes of quantum-limited metrology and control of ultrafast light-matter interactions.
Related
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- Towards intense single-digit attosecond pulses with a 100-mJ-class mid-infrared sub-cycle laser
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- Progress toward quantum-noise-limited interferometric measurements of optical nonlinearity in vacuum
- Quantum Noise Limited Nonlinear Phase-Preserving Amplification of a Bosonic Mode
BibTeX
@misc{kowalczyk2026shotnoiselimited,
title = {{Shot-noise-limited few-cycle mid-infrared frequency comb with attosecond phase stability}},
author = {Maciej Kowalczyk and Jakub Jaworski and Michał Pietrzak and Karolina Suliga and Paweł Szczypkowski and Paweł Kaczmarek and Alexander Weigel and Jarosław Sotor},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.01359},
eprint = {2609.01359},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.01359},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Shot-noise-limited few-cycle mid-infrared frequency comb with attosecond phase stability
AU - Maciej Kowalczyk
AU - Jakub Jaworski
AU - Michał Pietrzak
AU - Karolina Suliga
AU - Paweł Szczypkowski
AU - Paweł Kaczmarek
AU - Alexander Weigel
AU - Jarosław Sotor
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/01
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.01359
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.01359
AB - Achieving sub-cycle waveform control with attosecond-level precision while reaching shot-noise-limited amplitude stability in the mid-infrared spectral range remains a central challenge for ultrafast and precision optical science. Here, we demonstrate a fully stabilized, ultra-stable optical frequency comb (OFC) based on a Kerr-lens mode-locked Cr:ZnS laser operating at 2.3 μm. The oscillator delivers 40 fs pulses at a 25 MHz repetition rate, which are spectrally broadened to cover two octaves and compressed to a 1.4-cycle, 11 fs duration. Pumped by a custom low-noise erbium-doped fiber amplifier, the laser exhibits an integrated relative intensity noise (RIN) of 0.0026% over 10 Hz--1 MHz, while the noise of the few-cycle output is further suppressed to 0.0017% and reaches the shot-noise limit for Fourier frequencies above 5 kHz. It represents the lowest amplitude noise reported to date for any mode-locked laser. This unprecedented amplitude stability enables carrier-envelope phase (CEP) stabilization with a residual integrated phase noise of only 1.5 mrad (10 Hz--12.5 MHz), corresponding to a CEP jitter of 1.8 as, the highest phase stability for any laser system ever reported. The long-term performance of the fully stabilized OFC is measured over 24 hours, with a power stability of 0.01% and a residual CEP noise of 17 mrad. By combining few-cycle mid-infrared pulses with shot-noise-limited intensity noise and attosecond-level phase stability, the reported OFC provides access to new regimes of quantum-limited metrology and control of ultrafast light-matter interactions.
ER -