Abstract

The transfer of ultra-stable frequencies between distant laboratories is a fundamental issue for a large number of high-sensitivity experiments in advanced metrology and fundamental physics, e.g. test of fundamental constants stability. With the recent development of single ion traps and cold atoms lattices, optical clocks are indeed expected to reach fractional frequency instability level of 10"¹⁷ or better at one day measurement time. The transmission of optical frequency standards over optical fibre has been investigated for a few years and several links of more than 100 km with instability in the 10⁻¹⁷ to 10⁻¹⁹ range have already been reported [1-4]. All of them used dedicated dark fibres in urban environment.

© 2009 IEEE