Doppler-stabilized fiber link with 6 dB noise improvement below the classical limit

Abstract

It is known that temperature variations and acoustic noise affect ultrastable frequency dissemination along optical fiber. Active stabilization techniques are adopted to compensate for the fiber-induced phase noise. However, despite this compensation, the ultimate link performances are limited by the delay-unsuppressed noise that is related to the propagation delay of the light in the fiber. We demonstrate a post-processing approach which enables us to overcome this limit. We implement a subtraction algorithm between the optical signal delivered at the remote link end and the round-trip signal. In this way, a 6 dB improvement beyond the delay-unsuppressed noise is obtained. We confirm the prediction with experimental data obtained on a 47 km metropolitan fiber link and propose how to extend this method for frequency dissemination.