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Gas-laser frequency control for passive cavity-ring gyros

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:6772586
The frequency stability of a helium-neon laser can be significantly enhanced by locking the laser's frequency to a resonance of an optical cavity. This frequency stabilization is achieved by electronic feedback and sensor control of the laser's cavity length and discharge current. The frequency-locking technique described in this paper may be applied to passive resonant ring gyros and toward improving frequency standards and length measurements. When this technique was applied to a 169-cm/sup 2/ passive cavity, a random error of 0.0078 Earth rate units was obtained, with a 10 s averaging time. Although the performance of this instrument is about one order of magnitude above the shot noise limit, extrapolation of this performance to proposed large passive resonant-ring gyros indicates the desired sensitivity for precision-rate sensor testing, geophysical investigations, and relativity experiments is attainable.
Research Organization:
Air Force Academy, CO (USA). Frank J. Seiler Research Lab.
OSTI ID:
6772586
Report Number(s):
AD-A-195126/8/XAB; FJSRL-JR-88-0004
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English