Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • RESEARCH BRIEFINGS

An optical innovation for metrology at the quantum limit of precision

Frequency-comb lasers are measuring sticks of the optical world and are used in metrology and sensing applications owing to their rigid, comb-like light spectra and metronomic pulsed output. A frequency comb with time-programmable pulses breaks this rigid mould and, in a demonstration of its utility, measures distances at the quantum limit of precision.

This is a summary of: Caldwell, E. D. et al. The time-programmable frequency comb and its use in quantum-limited ranging. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05225-8 (2022).

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03153-1

‘Expert opinion’ is published under a CC BY 4.0 licence.

References

  1. Hänsch, T. W. Rev. Mod. Phys. 78, 1297–1309 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Hall, J. L. Rev. Mod. Phys. 78, 1279–1295 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Diddams, S. A., Vahala, K. & Udem, T. Science 369, eaay3676 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Fortier, T. & Baumann, E. Commun. Phys. 2, 153 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Coddington, I., Swann, W. C., Nenadovic, L. & Newbury, N. R. Nature Photon. 3, 351–356 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links