Optical frequency combs generated by four-wave mixing in optical fibers for astrophysical spectrometer calibration and metrology

Optical frequency combs generated by multiple four-wave mixing in short and highly nonlinear optical fibers are proposed for use as high precision frequency markers, calibration of astrophysical spectrometers, broadband spectroscopy and metrology. Implementations can involve two optical frequency standards as input lasers, or one standard and a second laser phase-locked to it using a stable microwave reference oscillator. Energy and momentum conservation required by the parametric generation assures phase coherence among comb frequencies, while fibers with short lengths can avoid linewidth broadening and stimulated Brillouin scattering. In contrast to combs from mode-locked lasers or microcavities, the absence of a resonator allows large tuning of the frequency spacing from tens of gigahertz to beyond teraHertz. (C) 2008 Optical Society of America.