Diode laser frequency-noise suppression by >50 dB by use of electro-optic parametric master oscillators

We demonstrate a novel frequency-stabilization scheme for laser diodes that is capable of linewidth reduction by more than 5 orders of magnitude. In this master-slave scheme the diode laser emission is frequency-offset phase locked to the emission of an electro-optic parametric oscillator (EOPO), and the laser diode is simultaneously used as the EOPO pump source. As a result the initial frequency fluctuations of the pump are reduced to the intrinsic noise level of the EOPO, which can be extremely small. We demonstrate that subhertz linewidths of the beat notes of the signals of two of these systems can be readily achieved if acoustic perturbations are suppressed.