Electro-optic dual-comb interferometer for high-speed vibrometry

Journal article, 2017

© 2017 Optical Society of America. Electro-optic frequency comb generators are particularly promising for dual-comb spectroscopy. They provide a high degree of mutual coherence between the combs without resorting to complex feedback stabilization mechanisms. In addition, electro-optic frequency combs can operate at very high repetition rates, thus providing very fast acquisition speeds. Here, we exploit these two features to resolve the rapid movement of a vibrating target. Our electro-optic dual-comb interferometer is capable of combining time-of-fight information with a more precise interferometric measurement based on the carrier phase. This fact, previously demonstrated by stabilized femtosecond frequency combs, allows us to increase the precision of the time-of-flight measurement by several orders of magnitude. As a proof of concept, we implement a fiber-based vibrometer that offers sub-nanometer precision at an effective acquisition speed of 250 kHz. These results expand the application landscape of electro-optic dual-comb spectroscopy to laser ranging and other remote sensing measurements.