Room-Temperature AlGaAs Cavity Reaches 4.2e-17 Instability, Surpassing Dielectric Brownian Limits
The arXiv preprint reports a room-temperature cavity laser at 4.2e-17 instability using AlGaAs coatings, identifying birefringence fluctuations and acceleration coupling as key limits. The result narrows the performance gap with cryogenic systems and enables field-deployable precision metrology. Evidence rests on a single-cavity three-cornered-hat measurement with feed-forward acceleration correction.
Integration with portable optical lattice clocks and space-based gravitational-wave detectors is now feasible within five years, provided vibration isolation reaches 10^{-10} g/√Hz. Active thermal shields and real-time birefringence feedback represent the clearest near-term upgrades.
JILA team: 1e-17 room-temperature instability demonstrated within 24 months using active birefringence servo and improved mounting.
Sources (2)
- [1]Primary Source(https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.01406)
- [2]Supporting Source(https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.11204)