Franklyn Quinlan

The most frequency-stable electromagnetic radiation is now produced optically, with stable reference cavities demonstrating fractional frequency instabilities below 10^-16 at 1 second and optical clocks reaching 10^-18 at 10^4 seconds. This talk will cover recent work at NIST using optical frequency combs to transfer this stability across the optical domain at the level of 10^-18 at 1 second, as well as into the RF, microwave, and mm-wave domains at the level of 10^-15 to 10^-17 at 1 second. In addition to the optical frequency combs themselves, elements of compact ultrastable optical cavities, high-speed photodetection and broadband electronic synthesis will also be discussed.