Carrier-Envelope Phase Stabilization of Modelocked Lasers

Carrier-envelope phase stabilization of few cycle optical pulses has recently been realized. This advance in femtosecond technology is important in both extreme nonlinear optics and optical frequency metrology. The development of air-silica microstructure fiber was an enabling technology for performing phase stabilization. The microstructure fiber provides a group-velocity zero within the spectral region that can be accessed with titanium sapphire lasers. The presence of a group-velocity zero allows the output spectrum of the laser to be broadened so that it exceeds one octave, which is necessary for our phase stabilization technique. We will present the basics of the technique and role played by the microstructure fiber. Measurement of the nonlinear phase shift in the fiber is also performed to determine the contribution of amplitude to phase noise conversion.