Septemeber Meeting: Prof. Erich Ippen, MIT

Optical Clocks, Combs and Arbitrary Waveforms

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Advances in femtosecond lasers that make it possible to generate pulses on the order of one optical cycle are also making it possible to control the underlying electric field waveforms.  This new capability is leading to more accurate clocks and to greater precision in spectroscopy and metrology via the associated comb-like frequency spectra that span bandwidths greater than 300THz.  By spatially demultiplexing, rapidly modulating the many individual comb frequencies and then remultiplexing, one can generate, for the first time, truly arbitrary optical-frequency electric-field waveforms.